Two safeties in one quarter, and fifty-three years of nobody matching it
On 21 October 1973 Fred Dryer recorded the only two-safety game in NFL history, in the fourth quarter of the Rams' 24-7 win over Green Bay — four points by a defensive end whose afternoon depended on a Packers offense that gained 63 yards all day.
On 21 October 1973 the Los Angeles Rams led the Green Bay Packers 13-7 after three quarters at the Coliseum. Then Los Angeles scored 11 points in the fourth. 1
The last four of those eleven points were two safeties, both of them by the same defensive end, Fred Dryer. 1
A capacity crowd of 80,558 watched the Rams win their sixth straight game. 2
Two safeties in one game is the NFL's individual record. It is also the entire list: nobody had done it before Dryer, and nobody has done it in the fifty-three years since. 345
What two points are worth
A safety scores two points when a ball carrier is tackled in his own end zone, or the ball goes dead there on the offense. 6
Green Bay then had to free-kick from its own 20, which handed the ball back to Los Angeles along with the points. 6
The team that scores a safety gets the two points and good field position. The team that concedes one gets neither. 6
Brian Burke, writing for Advanced NFL Stats, estimated that a safety carried more value than a field goal even though it scores a point less. 6
Those points are scarce. Through the 2025 season the NFL had recorded 78,699 touchdowns, 41,933 field goals and 1,139 safeties in regular-season play. 6
That works out to one safety for every 69 touchdowns, and one for every 37 field goals. 6
The two safeties
Green Bay trailed 20-7 in the fourth quarter and had the ball deep in its own territory. Dryer came off the right side of the Rams' line and ran down Scott Hunter, the Packers' starting quarterback, in the end zone. 3
The Packers' next possession, still in the fourth quarter, started near their own goal line too. Dryer looped through the middle of the line and pulled down Jim Del Gaizo, the backup. 3
The score went from 20-7 to 22-7 to 24-7, and that finished the scoring. 1
Those two were the only safeties Dryer recorded in thirteen seasons and 176 games. 3
Two also happens to be the NFL record for a whole season. 3
Why Green Bay was on its own goal line
Green Bay finished the afternoon with 63 net yards. 1
The Packers ran 25 times for 35 yards. Their quarterbacks completed 5 of 12 passes for 71 yards, and four sacks took 43 of those back. 1
Green Bay made six first downs in sixty minutes and converted one of nine third downs. 1
The Packers' punter, Ron Widby, kicked six times for 247 yards, nearly four times what the offense gained. 1
An offense that gains 63 yards spends the afternoon backed up against its own goal line. Both safeties came from there. 1
Los Angeles gained 378 yards, 244 of them running the ball, and made 21 first downs. 1
John Hadl threw a 46-yard pass to Harold Jackson for the Rams' only touchdown. A week earlier the same pair had connected four times for scores against Dallas. 12
Green Bay's only points came on a 23-yard pass from MacArthur Lane, a running back, to Barry Smith. 1
The day the Rams scored three
Dryer's franchise owns the team record, and it took three different plays to reach it. On 30 September 1984, three years after Dryer retired, the Rams recorded three safeties against the New York Giants, all of them in the third quarter. 47
Two of the three came from blocked punts. The third came from sacking Phil Simms. 7
Three safeties in one game, and no Ram had two of them. 4
The career record is four, shared by Jared Allen, Ted Hendricks, Justin Houston and Doug English. Each of those four accumulated his total one safety at a time, because two in an afternoon has happened once. 4
The season it landed in
1973 was Chuck Knox's first year coaching the Rams. Los Angeles won its first six games, finished 12-2, and lost 27-16 at Dallas in the franchise's first playoff game since the 1970 merger. 8
Green Bay finished 5-7-2 under Dan Devine, third in the NFC Central. 9
The Packers were 2-2-2 when they left Los Angeles. Overtime arrived in 1974, and no team has tied twice in a season since. 9
The box score's weather line reads 67 degrees, 78 percent humidity, a six-mile-an-hour wind and smoke haze. 1
After the afternoon
Dryer played until 1981. Sacks became an official statistic the following year, so his career total is unofficial. 3
In 1974 he and Jack Youngblood tied for the league lead with 15. 3
In 1984 he took a different job, playing Detective Rick Hunter on NBC for seven seasons. 3
Asked about the afternoon decades later, Dryer told the Rams he could not have ordered it more perfectly. 10
The team record took three separate plays. The individual record has held for fifty-three years. Getting two in one afternoon needs an offense pinned on its own goal line twice, and a defender who arrives both times.
References
- 1Green Bay Packers at Los Angeles Rams, October 21, 1973 — Pro Football Archives
profootballarchives.com
- 2
- 3Fred Dryer — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 4Records for safeties in football — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 5Most safeties in an NFL game by an individual — Guinness World Records
guinnessworldrecords.com
- 6Safety (gridiron football score) — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 7Throwback Thursday: Rams set NFL record with three safeties vs. Giants — Rams Wire
theramswire.usatoday.com
- 81973 Los Angeles Rams season — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 91973 Green Bay Packers season — Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
- 10
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