There are eight situations in which a team can score a touchdown in the NFL. Can you name 'em all?
While you're thinking, the important part of the story here is that after five games, the Philadelphia Eagles have now scored a touchdown in seven different ways, per RedZone's Scott Hanson and FTW. No team in the NFL has ever scored a touchdown all eight ways, but the Eagles now have the rest of the year to do so.
All right, so let's get to the many situations in which you can score a touchdown. The first two are easy:
• Rushing touchdown. This happens regularly, unless you're Jacksonville.
• Receiving touchdown. Fantasy bonus if you own both QB and receiver.
Next, you've got the special teams touchdowns:
• Kickoff touchdown. Momentum reverser.
• Punt return touchdown. Should've kicked it out of bounds.
The rest involve some kind of miscue, and are painful indeed.
• Fumble return. The defensive heartbreaker.
• Interception return. The pick-six QB breaker.
• Punt block return. Insult atop injury.
So what does that leave? The one kind of touchdown situation that the Eagles haven't yet scored: a botched field goal. If a field goal is blocked, or is caught short of the crossbar, the defense can return it for a touchdown. It's a rare play, certainly, but not an impossible one, as Alabama could tell you.
(Update: to clarify, there are, in fact some other ways to score a touchdown, such as falling on an untouched kickoff or returning a kickoff following a safety for a touchdown. But we're classifying those as kickoff situations.)
As strange as Philadelphia's offense has been this season, we would not be surprised to see this as an orchestrated part of their game plan.
We heard that after every week. Maybe after bye
