Safety (American and Canadian Football Score)

Safety (American And Canadian Football Score)

In gridiron football, the safety (American football) or safety touch (Canadian football) is a scoring play which results in two points being awarded to the scoring team. Safeties can be scored in a number of ways, such as when a ballcarrier is tackled in his own end zone or when a foul is committed by the offense in their own end zone. After a safety is scored in American football, the ball is kicked off to the team that scored the safety from the 20 yard line; in Canadian football, the scoring team also has the options of scrimmaging the ball from their 35-yard line or kicking the ball off themselves. This differs from the touchdown and field goal, which result in the scoring team surrendering the ball to the opposition through a kickoff. Despite being of relatively low point value, safeties can have a significant impact on the result of games, and Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats estimated that safeties have a greater abstract value than field goals, despite being worth a point less, due to the field position gained off of the safety kick.

Safeties are the least common method of scoring in American football, but are not rare occurrences — since 1932, a safety has occurred once every 14.31 games in the National Football League (NFL), or about once a week under current scheduling rules. A much rarer occurrence is the one-point safety, which can be scored by the offense on an extra point or two-point conversion attempt; those have occurred at least twice in NCAA Division I football since 1996, most recently at the 2013 Fiesta Bowl. No conversion safeties have occurred since at least 1940 in the NFL. A conversion safety could also be scored by the defense in a score in college football; although this has never occurred, it is the only possible way a team could finish with a single point in an American football game.