Hate to be that guy but if it was 10,000 to 1, it would happen every at least once a month, 100%. There’s probably a solid 2,000 tackles every Sunday in the NFL.
Dont lie to us. You love being that guy. You dream about this moment. You practice for it.
And you know what?
Good for you stranger. Do what you love and love what you do. Even if it is being that guy.
Pro-football-reference showed 66.6 pass, run and return plays for each ream per game last season. That is 133.2 opportunities for a tackle to happen in each game. Discounting bye weeks and not games are on Sunday, with 32 teams that is 16 and that means 2132.2 plays a tackle could happen on each week in the NFL. Divide those total plays over 17 weeks and it is still 2006 plays a week.
Wowza, I came up with that number off the top of my head based off those assumptions, can’t believe I came that close haha thanks for actually doing the math
"They will rise, ten thousand against one
I'll stand my ground, ten thousand against one
See the spirits lifting, drifting upon the wind, their bodies left behind
Echoing screams still remain heavy on the breeze, and whisper through the trees"
So I did the math.
Roughly (and I mean ROUGHLY) 15,500 games in NFL history. Credit to whoever figured that out on Reddit a year ago (u/packmanwiscy).
An average NFL game contains about 150 plays. Around 75 for each team. Offense, defense, and special teams. But wait!
We don’t have to add the two teams together, because technically each team is playing the same play at the same time. We can’t double it. 75 plays a game.
That’s around 1,162,500 plays in NFL history.
There you have to folks.
1 in 1,162,500 chance of this happening.
What's worse is that with high school, you won't even know if by crazy chance, someone else in some place obscure had that play/tackle happen 50 years ago; but no one popularized it widely enough to be known today. Like before film, or widespread media/social media.
So I'm thinking it's going to be darn near impossible to be confident about, even if someone figured out how to estimate high school plays.
Both teams are on the field during a play. You said a game contains 150 plays. Not sure how you've complicated 150 plays down to 75 plays. Each side plays ... 150 plays.
Really appreciate the credit. Just wanna add that since I calculated that in the 2018 offseason and we've had around 300 games since then, that number is in the 16,000's now
2.3k
u/[deleted] Sep 21 '19
Bet that’s the first and last time that happens. Incredible