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Scoring touchdowns is how you win, so scoring them early in the Super Bowl is especially important. Over previous finals, we’ve seen games with some of the highest and lowest-scoring results in the history of the NFL. It makes you wonder how important the first touchdown for either team is.
In this article, we’ll outline the history of teams and players that score the first touchdown of the match, including any historical trends, the significance of scoring, as well as any memorable moments where a team touchdown first.
Ever wonder who it was to run the ball into the endzone for the first time in Super Bowl history? Green Bay Packers Max McGee, back in the 1967 Super Bowl, would make an incredible one-handed catch off a toss from Bart Starr in a game vs the Kansas City Chiefs before running 37 yards to score the first-ever touchdown in Super Bowl history. The Packers would then win the Super Bowl 35-10 against Kansas City.
The next year, the Packers would once again score the first touchdown of the Super Bowl on a pass caught by Boyd Dowler from Bart Starr. The Packers would once again go on to win Super Bowl II, showcasing in the previous years that an early touchdown helps ensure you might win the game. This would remain true for Super Bowl III in 1969 when the New York Jets would score first vs the Baltimore Colts and win on a 16-7 tally.
If we go as far back in recent years as the 2010 Super Bowl XLV, the Green Bay Packers would once again win the Super Bowl 31-25 against the Steelers, with Jordy Nelson scoring the first touchdown of the game off a pass from Aaron Rodgers. The following year, the Giants Victor Cruz would score first against the New England Patriots, and they’d win the game 21-17 from the early score.
This trend continued for several years until Super Bowl LI in 2017, when a team that would score first ended up losing. In this game, the Patriots would fall 7-0 in the second quarter, where Atlanta would score the game’s first TD off a 5-yard rush. Surprisingly, the Falcons would score two more touchdowns and earn a 28-3 lead. However, they completely blew it to the Patriots after a huge comeback in an OT battle, in which the Patriots came out victorious as one of the first teams in a long time to win the Super Bowl without scoring first.
Interestingly, the New England Patriots have pulled off strange feats several times in the Super Bowl, including the ‘latest-in-the-game’ first touchdown to ever be scored in NFL history, which was with 7 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl LIII in 2019 against the Los Angeles Rams.
Occurrences where a team would score first and lose the game would only happen one other time from 2010 to now, which was the most recent Super Bowl LVIII in 2024, where the San Francisco 49ers would score first (after a field goal) on a catch from Christian McCaffrey from Jauan Jennings to lead 10-0.
The Kansas City Chiefs would come back for a 25-22 win by the end of OT. So, out of the 15 most recent Super Bowls, only two teams that scored first failed to lose, meaning the remaining 13 teams were victorious, proving how important scoring first is in the largest NFL game of the year.
Liam has been a major sports fan and soccer player for over a decade, with a particular focus on major top-level soccer leagues, including the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and MLS. He has written numerous promotional articles for various top sportsbooks and continues to publish historical and factual sports articles covering the NFL, MLS, NHL, MLB, EPL and more.