Points come from four kinds of play, each worth a different amount. A touchdown is six points, a field goal is three, and a safety is two. After a touchdown you get one extra attempt, worth one point if you kick it and two if you run or throw it in.
| How you score | Points |
|---|---|
| Touchdown | 6 |
| Field goal | 3 |
| Safety | 2 |
| Try after a touchdown, by kick | 1 |
| Try after a touchdown, by run or pass | 2 |
That is the entire scoring system, and the rulebook says so in four lines:
NFL rulebook, Rule 11, Section 1, Article 2 (Types of Scoring Plays). Points are scored as follows:
(a) Touchdown: 6 points
(b) Field goal: 3 points
(c) Safety: 2 points
(d) Try after touchdown: 1 point (field goal or safety) or 2 points (touchdown)
Everything below is about why those numbers are what they are, and when a team gambles on the two instead of the one. I will take each one in turn.
Why a touchdown is worth six, not seven
This one confused me for longer than I would like to admit. Scoreboards kept showing sevens, and a touchdown is six.
The answer is that the seven is two separate things added together. The touchdown is six. The one that usually follows it is a different play, taken afterwards, and it can be missed.
First, what actually counts as a touchdown:
NFL rulebook, Rule 11, Section 2, Article 1 (Touchdown Plays). A touchdown is scored, and the ball becomes dead when: (a) The ball is on, above, or behind the plane of the opponent’s goal line (extended) and is in possession of a runner who has advanced from the field of play into the end zone.
Read that carefully and you can see there is no requirement to carry the ball deep into the end zone. The ball only has to reach the plane of the goal line, an invisible wall standing up from it. An inch over is a touchdown. That is why you will hear about the ball breaking the plane, and why a runner will stretch his arm out while being tackled: he does not need his body in, only the ball.
The try, and the kick that stopped being automatic
After a touchdown the scoring team gets one more play, called a Try. The rulebook sets out the two ways to take it, and where from:
NFL rulebook, Rule 11, Section 3, Article 1 (Try). The team that scored the touchdown shall put the ball in play: (a) anywhere on or between the inbound lines; (b) 15 yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try kick; or (c) two yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try by pass or run.
Put those two spots side by side and the whole decision makes sense. The kick is taken from thirteen yards further out than the run or pass. That gap is the trade: a long but comfortable kick for one point, or a short but genuinely hard play for two.
It has not always been that far out. In 2015 the league moved the snap back to the 15-yard line. That sounds short until you count what else is in the way: ten yards of end zone behind the posts, plus the seven or eight yards the ball travels back to the holder. Add those and the 15-yard line becomes a kick of about 33 yards. For years the kick really was automatic, running at close to 99 percent. Since the change it has sat in the mid-nineties, dipping to 92.4 percent in 2021, the lowest since 1979. A miss went from a freak event to something you will see most weeks.
What that means in practice showed up almost immediately, in the AFC Championship game of January 2016. New England’s Stephen Gostkowski missed an extra point against Denver, his first after 523 in a row across nine years. It mattered later: when the Patriots scored late, that missing point meant a kick would no longer tie the game, so they had to go for two instead. They did not get it, and lost 20-18. “I feel like I lost the game for the team,” Gostkowski said afterwards. One routine-looking kick in the first quarter decided how the whole game had to end.
One more wrinkle worth knowing, also from 2015: the defending team can now score on a Try. Intercept the two-point attempt, run it all the way back, and they get two points of their own. It is rare, and it is real.
The field goal, three points
A field goal is a kick through the tall posts, worth three, and it is usually a fourth-down decision. A team that has used its four downs without reaching the end zone, but is close enough to kick, will take the three.
Close enough usually means inside the opponent’s 35-yard line, which makes for a kick of about 50 yards or less. Distance is everything here. A short one is routine for a professional. Anything past 55 yards is a genuine ask. The record now stands at 68 yards, set by Jacksonville’s Cam Little in 2025, which is the longest in NFL history. He holds the second longest as well, a 67-yarder, so the top two kicks in the sport’s history belong to the same man.
Most of the time, though, three points is a team settling: taking the certain thing rather than risking coming away with nothing at all.
The safety, two points
A safety is worth two and it is the only score the defence makes on its own, without ever having the ball. It happens when the team in possession is tackled in its own end zone.
The rulebook’s wording is drier but it explains the logic:
NFL rulebook, Rule 3, Section 28 (Safety). It is a safety if the ball is dead in possession of a team on or behind its own goal line when the impetus (3-16) comes from the team defending that goal line.
“Impetus” is doing the work in that sentence. It means: who caused the ball to end up back there. If the team in possession put itself in its own end zone, that is a safety. If the other team forced the ball back there, it is not. Blame, essentially, written in rulebook language.
The sting is double. The conceding team gives up two points and then has to kick the ball back to the team that just scored, so the opposition gets the points and the ball. It is one of the rarest regular scores in the sport.
Rarer still is the one-point safety, which can only happen on a Try. Most fans will go a lifetime without seeing one.
Common questions
How many points is a touchdown?
Six, not seven. The seven you see on a scoreboard is the six-point touchdown plus the one-point kick that usually follows it, which is a separate play in its own right.
How does a two-point conversion work?
After a touchdown, a team can go for two points instead of kicking for one. From the two-yard line they get a single play to run or throw the ball into the end zone, like a miniature touchdown. Make it and it is worth two. Miss it and they get nothing.
What is a safety in American football?
A safety is worth two points and is the only score the defence can make on its own. It happens when the player with the ball is tackled in his own end zone. The conceding team then has to kick the ball back to the other side, so it loses the points and the possession.
Where to go next
- NFL downs explained: the four-downs cycle that decides when a team settles for three
- NFL rules decoded: how the whole game fits together
- Overtime decoded: what happens when the scores end up level
- Penalties and pass interference decoded: the other thing that moves a scoreboard
- Super Bowl records: the biggest scoring days the sport has had
- NFL stats explained: where scoring turns into numbers
Everything on this page is checked against the official NFL rulebook, published by NFL Football Operations.