The Most Irrelevant Touchdowns of 2024

The most important touchdown of the 2024 NFL regular season was probably Jayden Daniels’ 2-yard pass to Zach Ertz in overtime against the Falcons in Week 17. It gave Washington a 30-24 win, which locked up a playoff berth for the Commanders. It knocked the Falcons out of first place in the NFC South, more-or-less giving the division to the Buccaneers. And due to tiebreakers, it also happened to cement the NFC West for the Rams.

A single touchdown all but put the Commanders, Bucs and Rams in the playoffs and essentially eliminated the Seahawks and Falcons. It’s hard to get more important and influential than that.

But the most irrelevant touchdown? That’s harder.

First off, every touchdown is important. Teams have fans, and when teams score points, fans are happy. Players have contracts, and the more touchdowns they score, the more dollars they earn. And so on and so forth. This isn’t to say there is any touchdown that is completely devoid of meaning. It’s just that some kind of feel that way.

So today, I’m attempting to find our most irrelevant touchdown of the 2024 NFL season. I did this a year ago, and the process resulted in the “winner” being a 1-yard Royce Freeman run in Week 8 that took a 33-3 game to 33-9. Translation: Yeah, that one was pretty irrelevant. Can we find a similarly ho-hum touchdown this year?

The Most Irrelevant Touchdown of 2024

There were 1,387 touchdowns scored in the 2024 regular season, starting with Derrick Henry’s 5-yard run in the first quarter of opening night and ending with Jahmyr Gibbs’ 4-yard rush with 5 minutes left in Week 18. Neither was completely irrelevant (just look at the names), but in between, things were different.

I have a process to eliminate the scores in swaths. Let’s go.

No Defensive/Special Teams Touchdowns (1,387 to 1,331)

An interception, fumble recovery, kickoff or punt return touchdown is definitionally one of the most exciting plays in football. You give me a pick-6 by a third-stringer in the fourth quarter of a 37-7 blowout, and I’ll concede the score didn’t matter for results if you’ll concede that it’s still pretty cool to see.

No TDs Outside the Red Zone (1,331 to 1,022)

Obviously this threshold could be smaller, because a 19-yard score is still pretty exciting, and excitement means relevance. But this is a nice starting point to cut out a big group.

Nothing on Fourth Down (1,022 to 967)

Fourth downs mean a big swing in expectation, one way or another. Fail to convert and the other team gets the ball. Convert and hey, new set of downs. Score? It’s fancy, and it matters.

No Bills, Chiefs, Commanders or Eagles (967 to 811)

If you score for one of the teams playing on Conference Championship weekend, you contributed to one of the best teams in the NFL on the season. There’s no way that’s irrelevant.

Nothing More Than +1 EPA (811 to 165)

Like in last year’s exercise, I could have started here, but it’s more fun to run through the other categories first. The reasoning, though, is simple — if a team is expected to score (picking a touchdown largely at random) 4.57 points on a drive (like the Ravens were in Week 2 when they had the ball on second-and-5 against the Raiders) and they score 7 (when Lamar Jackson hit Zay Flowers for an 8-yard score), well, that’s a big swing. On the other hand, if a team has first-and-goal from the 1 and ends up scoring … they were kind of supposed to, you know?

Nothing in Weeks 1-2 (165 to 143)

Early in the season, everything is a blank slate. We come in with our expectations, but we don’t know what might become notable by the end of the year. Jamaal Williams scored in Week 1. Sure, he was relevant two years ago, but after a lost year in 2023, the chances he’d be relevant in 2024 were very slim. And of course he wasn’t. But with a Week 1 touchdown, did we know? We didn’t. Anything can happen that early, so any score could be the start of a very dramatic and exciting story.

Nothing Within One Score (143 to 42)

Any touchdown in a one-score game carries at least enough tension to be worth crossing off our list. There is a tiny bit of subjectivity in this. Does it mean “the touchdown came in a one-score game,” or does it mean “the touchdown made it a one-score game”? The answer: Both, sort of. It’s both, but also I didn’t eliminate a touchdown where, for example, the score went from 14-7 to 21-7 with two minutes left. So this is a strong guideline, but not an out-and-out rule.

No QB with 225+ PPR Points, No Skill Player with 150+ (42 to 11)

Even if games are decided and/or teams’ postseason fortunes are locked, fantasy players monitor touchdowns like crazy people. The most notable players (using my 225/150 standard) are started virtually everywhere. So even if the touchdown might not have mattered much for the specific game, it matters for a lot of viewers.

After that, we’re down to 11 touchdowns. From there, we could knock out a few more for individual reasons. Here they are, in chronological order:

Honorable Mention

Dak Prescott’s 1-Yard Run, Week 3

This touchdown didn’t make it a one-score game (it took the game from 28-6 to 28-12), but the Cowboys scored two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter and ultimately only lost by 3, so it was the start of a big comeback. And of course, while Prescott ended up getting injured in Week 9 and missing the rest of the year, at the time he was one of the must-start quarterbacks in fantasy, so this touchdown mattered for a lot of people.

Jordan Mason’s 4-Yard Run, Week 4

This score basically iced away the 49ers’ win over the Patriots, taking the score from 20-10 to 27-10. Mason faded over the course of 2024, but through Week 4 he was the RB5 in PPR and the most exciting waiver claim of the season. No way that was irrelevant.

Daniel Jones’ 2-Yard Touchdown, Week 9

This took the score from 24-10 to 24-16 (the Giants failed on the two-point try) in the fourth quarter. It was right on the edge of being eliminated in my “one-score game” category, so that’s close enough to not qualify here.

Gus Edwards’ 1-Yard Run, Week 12

This score took the game from 30-16 to 30-23 (one-score game!), but it came with 46 seconds left, so all it led to was a failed onside kick attempt and two Lamar Jackson kneeldowns. But given Gus Edwards was on the fringe of fantasy relevant at times and it was an Edwards/J.K. Dobbins/Greg Roman revenge game, it had relevance for other reasons.

Isaac Guerendo’s 1-Yard Run, Week 14

The only score of our final 11 to come in the first quarter of a game (eight of the 11 were fourth-quarter scores), Guerendo made it 14-0 on the 49ers’ way to 24-0 and ultimately a 38-13 win. So it was early enough in the game that we didn’t know it was over-over, and of course it came after the Christian McCaffrey/Jordan Mason injuries made Guerendo a popular fantasy waiver claim.

Drake Maye’s 5-Yard Run, Week 15

Inside the two-minute warning, Maye took the game from 30-10 to 30-17. It didn’t matter at all. That said, it was Drake Maye. He was the most relevant player who was actually irrelevant all season. Patriots fans are over the moon. He couldn’t be irrelevant. (Also, with the score being a 5-yarder, it was close to +1 EPA at 0.94.)

With that, we’re down to five. The five most irrelevant touchdown so the 2024 NFL season. Here they are, from No. 5 to No. 1.

5. Trey Sermon’s 1-Yard Run to Make the Game 27-34, Week 5

Jaguars beat the Colts 37-34

This touchdown came with 4 minutes left. It made it a one-score game, but then with 4 minutes left, how much does that really matter? Well, as it turns out, it mattered, because the Colts forced the Jags to a three-and-out and then scored again two plays later to tie the game, ultimately losing on a Jags field goal with 17 seconds left. So the Sermon touchdown itself didn’t feel very relevant, but it did lead to relevant things later, so it’s only fifth here.

4. Roschon Johnson’s 1-Yard Run to Make the Game 36-10, Week 5

Bears beat the Panthers 36-10

Despite being tantalizing to the draft folks, Johnson was inactive in Week 1 and played only special teams in Week 2. But then he got some real playing time in Week 3 (12 touches, 52 yards) and Week 4 (7 touches, 26 yards and a touchdown). So he might have flirted with some fantasy lineups in Week 5, and while this score just iced a game that was already decided (the Bears had led by multiple scores since 2:14 left in the first half), it was also Johnson’s second of the game. Even if he wasn’t in lineups for this game, a running back on a good team (which, we know where the Bears ended up, but they were 3-2 after this game) with three touchdowns in two games is going to get some waiver wire attention. Sure, after three scores in two games, Johnson scored three in 10 the rest of the way, but at the time, it raised our antennae.

3. C.J. Ham’s 2-Yard Run to Make the Game 17-0, Week 5

Vikings beat the Jets, 23-17

This score made the game look kind of over. Except … the Jets ended up making a game of it, outscoring the Vikings 17-6 the rest of the game and having the ball at the Minnesota 26 with less than a minute left needing a touchdown to win before Aaron Rodgers threw an interception. So the touchdown seemed extremely irrelevant at the time (which counts), but it ended up being necessary for the team, putting it in a little bit of purgatory in this exercise. What puts it as high as No. 3, though, is the fact that it was Ham’s first touchdown since Week 15 of 2022 (and the only one he scored in 2024), and he doesn’t even have 100 scrimmage yards the last two years combined. Fullback touchdowns are inherently irrelevant.

2. Ameer Abdullah’s 3-Yard Run to Make the Game 18-34, Week 5

Broncos beat the Raiders 34-18

This touchdown came with 4 minutes left and took the game from a 24-point deficit to a 16-pointer after Alexander Mattison scored the two-point conversion. The score took the game from “probably over” to “still probably over.” Abdullah entered the week with all of 5.5 PPR points through the first month of the season, so it’s not like he mattered for fantasy. Really, the only thing that keeps this score from ranking No. 1 is the fact that it was from the 3-yard line, and that’s not seen as quite the guaranteed score that 1-yard runs are.

(Also, what the heck was going on in Week 5? Each of the four scores above were in Week 5. Something in the water.)

1. Devin Singletary’s 1-Yard Run to Make the Game 7-30, Week 12

Buccaneers beat the Giants 30-7

It was 30-0 in the fourth quarter. That game is over. Tommy DeVito was starting his first game of the year and put up a 15.1 QBR. Devin Singletary started 2024 hot enough, averaging 14 carries per game through Week 4 and scoring two touchdowns. But after he missed Weeks 5 and 6, Tyrone Tracy Jr. took over the backfield in New York. By Week 12, Singletary hadn’t had double-digit touches since Week 4, hadn’t topped 40 yards on the ground since Week 3. Even in this game, the touchdown was one of only two carries he had, with the other being a 2-yard carry in the first half on a drive the Giants punted. So he wasn’t anywhere near fantasy rosters, the Giants were losing their sixth straight game and had an irrelevant quarterback, the game was long decided, and it was a 1 p.m. ET game on a slate when the Vikings/Bears, Cowboys/Commanders and Chiefs/Panthers all played very exciting games. No one was watching this. This was Scott Hanson on RedZone Channel cutting in to be like, “Well, we said we’d show you every touchdown, so here’s this.” That’s all anyone outside of the Singletary family cared about this one.

(The funniest part? Devin Singletary probably scored the most important touchdown of the 2023 season. Wild how quickly things change.)