After the sleeper of a 0-0 first half of the Packers vs. Eagles game on Monday, November 10, this writer had to wonder, has an NFL game ever ended 0-0? Because that would be hilarious and awesome.
As it turns out, it has.
Picture this: It’s November 7, 1943, a crisp autumn afternoon at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium, and the crowd is buzzing with the kind of nervous energy only wartime football can muster. The Detroit Lions and the New York Giants are about to do the impossible. They’re going to give the NFL’s scoreboards a nap. And not just any nap. A full-on, total, no-points, zero-zero snooze.
Yes, you read that right. 0-0. No touchdowns. No field goals. Not even a well-intentioned safety. Just two teams, an autumn sky, and a stubborn refusal to put points on the board. It’s a kind of sassy rebellion against modern football’s obsession with stats and highlight reels, a middle finger to fantasy football managers everywhere.
A Legendary 0-0 Game
So, has an NFL game ever ended 0-0? Absolutely. Once, and only once in modern memory, it seems. And it wasn’t yesterday. Heck, it wasn’t even this century. That glorious blank slate came during that long-ago clash between the Giants and Lions, and it’s safe to say nothing has ever been quite so perfectly, utterly, deliciously scoreless since.
Let’s bring this game into context. It was 1943, and World War II was raging on. The NFL is a lean, scrappy operation, short on players thanks to enlistments and drafts. The league isn’t yet the billion-dollar spectacle it would later become, but it’s serious business to the people who play it. On that chilly November day, the Lions and Giants take the field with a roster of men who probably also fought on the home front, who definitely ran harder on less, and who were not above grinding out a defensive stalemate just because that’s what football was sometimes meant to be. And grind they did.
If you want to make this sound like a tragedy—or a comedy—let’s talk numbers and research. The Giants and Lions combined for a grand total of 214 yards. That’s right. 214 yards. Modern teams do that in the first quarter. Maybe in one long, miserable, penalty-filled drive, you’d see numbers like that today. But in 60 minutes of professional play? That’s some serious defensive sass.
Both teams were stingy, methodical, and apparently allergic to scoring. The Giants’ offense could barely find the end zone with a microscope, and the Lions’ playmakers might as well have been handing out pamphlets for “How to Avoid Touchdowns 101.” Every run, pass, and punt conspired to keep the scoreboard at a perfect, pristine, gloriously blank 0-0.
Imagine being a fan in Briggs Stadium that day. You’ve bought your peanuts, clutched your blanket against the cold, and you’re watching men chase an oblong ball up and down the field with zero return on investment. By the fourth quarter, the crowd probably had a flirtatious understanding with their own boredom, leaning in close to each other, saying, “Isn’t this thrilling?” while secretly plotting how to make it home in time for dinner.
Yet, there’s something magnetic about it. A 0-0 game doesn’t just frustrate. It intrigues. It’s a subtle, sly demonstration of defensive excellence, a wink from the gridiron itself, like the sport is saying, “Yes, you want points? Not today, honey. Not today.”
Why It Can’t Happen Today
Fast-forward 80 years. Could we ever see a 0-0 NFL game in 2025? Honey, bless your optimism, but the answer is basically “no.”
Modern football is a flashy spectacle. Quarterbacks throw laser-guided spirals. Wide receivers do TikTok-worthy flips just to snag a 12-yard gain. Field goals are attempted from distances that would have made 1940s kickers blush. Rules favor offense. The salary cap ensures that the best talent is distributed across the league. And let’s be honest: no coach today would survive a 0-0 game without media backlash, fan outrage, and Twitter threads longer than your average dissertation.
So the Giants and Lions of 1943? They’re legends, if only because they pulled off something that today feels like magic. A defensive masterpiece. A perfectly balanced stalemate. A flirtation with the idea that football doesn’t always have to be about numbers, stats, or fantasy points. Sometimes, it’s just about control, strategy, and saying “not today” with style.
There’s something deeply, deliciously flirty about the notion of a 0-0 game. The defense tantalizes the offense. The offense teases the defense. Every drive ends with the scoreboard unchanged, and yet the tension builds. It’s a kind of intellectual seduction, where every yard earned is a whispered promise and every incompletion a coy dismissal. It’s football as a slow dance, and the scoreboard? Well, the scoreboard is your witness to the chemistry.
Think about it: the Lions and Giants, together, managed less than 220 yards in a full game. In the modern era, that’s basically a bad half for a single running back. And yet, in 1943, it was the entire game. They were bold. They were cheeky. They didn’t need points to prove dominance. Defense was seduction, endurance was allure, and a tie? Oh, baby, a tie was scandalous perfection.
So yes, NFL games have ended 0-0, and it happened once in the league’s modern era, on that unforgettable day in Detroit, November 7, 1943. The Giants and Lions combined to rack up a whopping 214 yards, and not a single point. It’s the kind of game that modern fans dream about with a mix of horror and awe. Horror because…well, zero points? Yikes. Awe because, oh honey, it’s rare, exquisite, almost mythical.
Next time you watch a shootout in the NFL, a game that looks like a pinball machine on steroids, remember Briggs Stadium, remember the Giants, remember the Lions, and maybe, just maybe, picture the scoreboard blank, the autumn wind in your hair, and a sly grin as two teams flirted with the impossible. A scoreless tie. Done, complete, and untouchable.
And that, my friends, is football at its finest.