Down at the One: The Complete 2025 Season, All 297 of Them

A yard is thirty-six inches. It is the shortest distance in football and the most expensive one, and almost nothing in the sport is worse at measuring it than a box score. A running back tackled at the one is credited with the yards and none of the points. A receiver who draws pass interference in the end zone moves the ball to the one-yard line and is credited with nothing at all. We went looking for every one of those moments in the 2025 regular season. There were more of them than we expected.

THE METHOD. Official play-by-play for all 272 regular season games, more than 49,000 plays. We counted three things. STOPPED: a run or a catch ends with the ball dead at the opponent's one, no score, and no penalty wiping the play out. PLACED: a defensive coverage foul spots the ball at the one. NULLIFIED: a touchdown erased by a penalty. One clarification, because people ask: this is the offensive one-yard line only. A team pinned at its own goal line is not down at the one. It is just backed up.

THE NUMBERS. 297 times a ball carrier or receiver was stopped at the opponent's one without scoring, a little more than once a game. On 152 of those drives somebody else scored the touchdown. The player who did the work got the vulture treatment. Only 67 times did the same player punch it in on the next try, and 78 drives came away without a touchdown at all. Add 50 defensive penalties that put the ball on the one and 60 touchdowns wiped out by a flag. That is 407 moments where a team got close enough to smell it and the box score did not tell the story. More than 200 drives got inside the five and never scored an offensive touchdown; 112 of them settled for a field goal.

WHO GOT THERE MOST. Javonte Williams and Christian McCaffrey were each stopped at the one nine times, more than anyone. Kyren Williams did it eight times for the Rams. Travis Etienne Jr. and Josh Jacobs were each stopped seven times; Jonathan Taylor, James Cook III, TreVeyon Henderson and Derrick Henry six apiece. Etienne is the vulture king: seven trips to the one, zero touchdowns of his own on those drives, six scored by somebody else. None of these are bad players having bad seasons. They are the men their teams trust with the hardest yard in football, which is precisely why they keep getting caught an inch short of the credit.

THE INVISIBLE TOUCHDOWN. Pass interference in the end zone is a spot foul: the ball goes to the one, first and goal. The receiver who drew it gets no reception, no yards and no touchdown, and the score that follows usually belongs to a running back. It happened 50 times in 2025, broken down as 39 pass interference calls, 10 defensive holdings and one illegal contact, and 42 of those drives ended in a touchdown. CeeDee Lamb drew three of them, more than any other receiver. Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Amon-Ra St. Brown drew two each. On the other side, Riley Moss committed three, the most of any defender in the league. None of it appears in a fantasy box score anywhere.

THE TEAM THAT DID IT MOST. The Los Angeles Rams had a runner or receiver stopped at the one 20 times in 2025, more than any other team, ahead of Dallas at 19 and New England at 15. They then opened the 2026 season in Melbourne by doing it again: third and goal from the two, Puka Nacua tackled at the one, then fourth and goal stuffed on a quarterback sneak and upheld on review. First and goal to zero points.

SEE EVERY PLAY. The full 2025 leaderboard and all 297 plays now live on the Down at the One tracker, next to the 2026 season as it happens. Open the tracker, hit Season to date, then pick 2025. The box score will keep missing these. We will not.

CORRECTION, SEPT. 17, 2026. An earlier version of this story said 418 players were stopped at the one. That count included clock stoppages, incomplete passes and other snaps that were not a player being tackled at the one. The correct figure is 297. Team totals were corrected the same way (Rams 20, not 32; Cowboys 19, not 27; Patriots 15, not 26), McCaffrey's count is nine because a tenth run was wiped out by an offside penalty, and a figure of 1,048 plays that died inside the five was removed because we could not reproduce it.