53 Football Trivia Questions [With Answers]

The NFL was born in a car dealership. Some guys sat on the running boards of Hupmobiles because there weren’t enough chairs.

That 1920 meeting in Canton, Ohio, is question 1. The other 52 questions below run from league origins through Super Bowl records, quarterback stats, team facts, obscure rules, draft surprises, and stadium culture, each with its answer and a note on why people miss it. Test your NFL knowledge in a quiz duel →

The full spread: seven categories, three difficulty bands.

The Easy, Medium and Hard labels are editorial choices for this list. They help you choose a round for your group; they are not measured success rates from LearnClash gameplay.

For a gentler warmup, start with our 43 sports trivia questions or general knowledge trivia. Running a round for coworkers instead? The team-building trivia guide covers formats built for mixed groups.

NFL History & Origins Questions (1-8)

History is the gap between watching football and knowing football. You can follow every snap of the current season, recite whole depth charts, and still blank the moment a question reaches back past 1970. These eight go all the way back to the founding decade.

1. In what city was the NFL founded, and where did the meeting take place? Easy

Answer: Canton, Ohio, at Ralph Hay’s Hupmobile car dealership. On September 17, 1920, fifteen men representing ten teams met in the showroom. There weren’t enough chairs, so some sat on the running boards of the cars.

The trap: Your gut says New York or Chicago. Canton feels too small. But the Canton Bulldogs were the dominant team of the era,.

2. How many of the original 14 NFL teams from 1920 still exist today? Easy

Answer: Two. The Chicago Bears (originally the Decatur Staleys) and the Arizona Cardinals (originally the Racine Cardinals of Chicago). Every other charter franchise folded.

Fourteen sounds like enough for a few survivors. Early pro football was chaotic, though. Teams folded after a single bad season, and the Staleys only made it because George Halas moved them to Chicago.

3. Which NFL team went 25 games without a loss, the longest unbeaten streak in league history? Medium

Answer: The Canton Bulldogs, who went 22-0-3 from 1921 to 1923. Nearly everyone reaches for the 1972 Dolphins or the 2007 Patriots here, but the Bulldogs’ streak is older than the Super Bowl itself, so it sits in a blind spot. Source.

4. When was the first NFL game broadcast on television? Medium

Answer: October 22, 1939. NBC broadcast the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Eagles from Ebbets Field. Two cameras, one announcer, and roughly 1,000 viewers on the TV sets that existed in New York.

The trap is guessing the 1950s or 1960s, when TV football became mainstream. NBC ran this experiment long before most Americans owned a television.

5. What year did the NFL effectively ban Black players, and when were they re-integrated? Medium

Answer: The league imposed an unofficial ban in 1934. It lasted until 1946, when the Los Angeles Rams signed Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. Almost nobody knows the ban existed at all, and the fact that Fritz Pollard and Bobby Marshall had already played in the league’s first season makes the later exclusion even more jarring.

[Source](https://www.profootballhof.com/news/moments-in-nfl-history-day-that-changed-the-game-forever).

6. Which two NFL teams merged during World War II to form a team called the “Steagles”? Hard

Answer: The Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles merged for the 1943 season because both had lost too many players to military service.

“Steagles” reads like a punchline, but the war drained rosters so badly that the NFL merged the Steelers with the Chicago Cardinals the very next year. That team, “Card-Pitt,” lost every game, and fans called them the “Carpets” because everyone walked all over them.

7. How many teams played in the first NFL season in 1920? Easy

Answer: 14 teams. The league was called the American Professional Football Association, or APFA.

Schedules varied, and teams also faced opponents outside the association. All 14 appear with games played in the NFL’s historical standings; the loose schedule does not mean that three teams never played. Source.

8. Who scored the first touchdown in a game between two APFA teams? Hard

Answer: Lou Partlow of the Dayton Triangles, against the Columbus Panhandles on October 3, 1920. Dayton won 14-0.

The scope matters: Rock Island had played a non-league opponent a week earlier. The NFL record book identifies the Dayton game as the first between two association members. Source.

Super Bowl Legends Questions (9-16)

Everyone has watched a Super Bowl. Far fewer people know the early ones: a name borrowed from a toy, a stadium a third empty, tickets cheaper than a pizza. The traps in this set are mostly about those early years, plus one game decided by a kick that sailed wide right.

Ticket stubs to halftime money: the big game from 1967 to now.

9. What was the Super Bowl originally called? Easy

Answer: The AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The name “Super Bowl” came from AFL founder Lamar Hunt, who was inspired by his children’s Super Ball toy, and it didn’t become official until Super Bowl III in 1969. Everyone knows the name; almost nobody knows it was borrowed from a bouncy ball.

10. What was the highest ticket price for the first Super Bowl? Medium

Answer: $12. Other tickets cost $6 or $10.

Twelve dollars was the top price, not the only price. It is a historical face value, which should not be confused with a modern resale quote. Source.

11. Which player won Super Bowl MVP despite being on the losing team? Medium

Answer: Chuck Howley of the Dallas Cowboys, Super Bowl V (1971). He intercepted two passes, but the Cowboys lost to the Baltimore Colts 16-13. MVP is supposed to go to the winning side; Howley broke that rule once, and nobody has done it since. Source.

12. How many Super Bowls has Tom Brady appeared in? Easy

Answer: 10 Super Bowls, with 7 wins. That means Brady played in nearly 1 out of every 6 Super Bowls ever held.

Seven wins is the number everyone remembers. Ten appearances is the stat that shocks. No other quarterback has more than five.

13. Does everyone performing in a Super Bowl halftime show work unpaid? Medium

Answer: No. For the 2022 show, SAG-AFTRA confirmed contracts for 115 paid professional dancers.

The halftime show includes different jobs and contracts. A claim about a headliner’s fee cannot be extended to every performer on the field. Source.

14. Which Super Bowl is the only one decided by exactly 1 point? Medium

Answer: Super Bowl XXV (January 1991). The New York Giants beat the Buffalo Bills 20-19 when Scott Norwood’s 47-yard field goal attempt went wide right as time expired. It feels like there should have been several one-point Super Bowls by now. Through Super Bowl LX in February 2026, there has been exactly one.

15. Which company has supplied the footballs used in every Super Bowl? Hard

Answer: Wilson. It has supplied the NFL’s official game balls since 1941.

The Super Bowl began much later, in 1967. The manufacturer’s history is a firmer quiz answer than a claim that exactly the same number of balls gets used in every final. Source.

16. Who sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XLVII in 2013? Hard

Answer: Alicia Keys, accompanying herself on piano.

The game took place in New Orleans. Naming the performer avoids a shaky “longest anthem” ranking: informal timings do not always start and stop at the same moments. Source.

Quarterback Records Questions (17-23)

Quarterback records cluster around a few famous names, and that is the trap. When unsure, people default to Brady or Manning. None of the seven answers below is either of them.

Seven quarterback questions. Not one of the answers is Brady.

17. Whose first career completion was a pass to himself? Medium

Answer: Brett Favre. On September 13, 1992, his pass deflected off a Tampa Bay defender’s helmet and landed right back in his hands. He lost 7 yards on the play.

It smells like a trick question. A quarterback completing a pass to himself shouldn’t be physically possible, but a deflection doesn’t care.

18. Which quarterback was the first pick in 1954 but never played for the team that drafted him? Hard

Answer: Bobby Garrett, selected by the Cleveland Browns and traded to Green Bay before appearing for Cleveland.

A first overall pick usually becomes part of the drafting team’s story. Garrett’s case is a reminder that being selected and actually playing for that club are different milestones. Source.

19. Who holds the record for most consecutive games with a touchdown pass? Easy

Answer: Drew Brees, with 54 consecutive games from 2009 to 2012.

The instinct is Brady, whose best streak reached 52 games. Peyton Manning got to 51. Brees outlasted both while drawing a fraction of the headlines.

20. Which USC backup quarterback went on to play 14 NFL seasons? Medium

Answer: Matt Cassel. He backed up Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC, then played in the NFL from 2005 to 2018.

Instead of arriving as a college starter with years of game film, Cassel reached the NFL as a backup and later got his chance to lead New England’s offense when Tom Brady suffered a knee injury in 2008. Source.

21. Which quarterback broke Michael Vick’s career rushing record in December 2024? Medium

Answer: Lamar Jackson, passing Vick’s 6,109 yards.

A dated record change is easier to check than an active player’s moving career total. The number here belongs to Vick’s previous mark. Source.

22. How many sacks did Dan Marino take across his 17 NFL seasons? Hard

Answer: 270 sacks.

Marino’s quick release is part of his reputation. The total is a defined career statistic; an unspecified average of “similar great quarterbacks” would make the comparison much less useful. Source.

23. Which quarterback’s Giants biography listed 10 catches and 18 kick returns in January 2021? Easy

Answer: Joe Webb. His career included work beyond throwing passes.

Quarterback appears beside his name, but that label does not describe every snap he played. The Giants’ dated career summary lists both receiving and kick-return statistics. Source.

Team Facts & Rivalries Questions (24-31)

Team questions reward tribal knowledge. Casual fans know their own franchise cold and little else, while the stories behind other cities’ teams (a corn starch company, midnight moving vans, a legal fiction in Cleveland) go unlearned. That gap is where these eight live.

24. What were the Chicago Bears originally called? Easy

Answer: The Decatur Staleys, in 1920, followed by Chicago Staleys in 1921. The name came from the A.E. Staley Manufacturing Company, a corn starch business that sponsored the team. Nobody guesses that one of the NFL’s most storied franchises began as a food-processing company’s works team.

25. How did the Baltimore Colts move to Indianapolis? Medium

Answer: Owner Robert Irsay hired Mayflower moving trucks and relocated the entire franchise in the middle of the night on March 29, 1984.

It plays like an urban legend: a whole NFL franchise sneaking out of town at 2 AM in rented moving vans. It happened, and Baltimore went without a team until the Ravens arrived in 1996.

26. Why are the New York Jets called the “Jets”? Easy

Answer: Their home field at Shea Stadium was near LaGuardia Airport in Queens. The team was originally the Titans; new owners renamed them the Jets in 1963, and they moved into Shea, in the flight path of LaGuardia, the following year. The name sounds like it’s about speed. It’s about an airport.

27. Which NFL team holds the record for the longest losing streak? Medium

Answer: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with 26 consecutive losses from 1976 to 1977. They went 0-14 in their first season and kept losing deep into the second.

The number is staggering on its own. What makes it harder to guess is that the same franchise won the Super Bowl after the 2002 season, so the memory of the misery has faded.

28. Which four NFL teams have never appeared in a Super Bowl? Medium

Answer: The Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars, a list still intact after Super Bowl LX in February 2026. Eight more teams have appeared but never won, bringing the total without a Super Bowl win to 12.

Where guesses go wrong: Detroit and Cleveland are historic franchises with huge fanbases, so people assume they’ve made it at least once. The Lions have existed since 1930 and have zero appearances.

29. Which team was created when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore? Hard

Answer: The Baltimore Ravens. The NFL kept the Browns’ name, history, and colors in Cleveland and reactivated the franchise in 1999, so the Ravens are technically an expansion team built from the old Browns’ roster.

The legal arrangement is confusing by design. Art Modell moved his players to Baltimore, the “Cleveland Browns” officially stayed behind, and Cleveland got a brand-new team wearing the same uniforms and carrying the same records as if nothing had happened.

30. Which two NFL teams share MetLife Stadium in New Jersey? Easy

Answer: The New York Giants and New York Jets.

Both teams carry New York in their names, while their stadium stands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Asking only which city has two stadium-sharing teams would also bring Los Angeles into the conversation. Source.

31. Which NFL franchise is the oldest? Hard

Answer: The Arizona Cardinals, founded in 1898 as the Morgan Athletic Club on the South Side of Chicago. The team has played in Chicago, St. Louis, and the Phoenix area in Arizona.

Nobody associates the Cardinals with “oldest anything.” The Bears, Packers, and Giants feel older because their histories are more celebrated, but the Cardinals predate the NFL itself by 22 years.

Rules You Didn’t Know Questions (32-38)

The rulebook reaches beyond the plays you see every Sunday. That’s what makes this section dangerous: several of these rules sound invented, and all seven are real. Fans who can recite stats for hours still hesitate when a question asks what the book actually says.

Seven real rules, including the rare fair-catch kick.

32. Is the drop kick still legal in the NFL? Easy

Answer: Yes. Doug Flutie drop-kicked an extra point for the New England Patriots on January 1, 2006, the first successful drop kick in a regular-season game since 1941.

Sixty-four years passed between successful attempts. The play is legal but so impractical that almost nobody tries it. Flutie did it in his final regular-season game, largely to prove it could still be done.

33. What penalty applies if a team is not on the field 10 minutes before kickoff? Medium

Answer: Loss of its coin-toss options for both halves and overtime, plus a 15-yard kickoff penalty.

The rule concerns the team’s options, not a coin magically landing the other way. See Rule 4, Section 1 of the 2026 NFL Rulebook.

34. Can a fair catch result in a free kick attempt at a field goal? Hard

Answer: Yes. After a fair catch, the receiving team can attempt an uncontested field goal from the spot of the catch. No defenders can rush. It’s essentially a free shot at three points.

The fair-catch kick has been used only a handful of times in NFL history. The situations where it makes sense (a fair catch in range as a half expires) are rare enough that most coaches never consider it.

35. How much is a safety worth during an extra-point or two-point try? Hard

Answer: One point, awarded to the opponent of whichever team commits the safety.

It can apply against either team. It cannot produce a 1-0 game through this mechanism: the try follows a touchdown already worth six points. A 6-1 score is theoretically possible under the rule. Source.

36. Is a player allowed to wear the number 0 in the NFL? Easy

Answer: Yes, since a 2023 rule change. Before that, jersey number 0 had been banned for decades, long enough that most fans stopped questioning it.

37. Can an NFL team score 2 points on a defensive play during an extra point attempt? Hard

Answer: Yes. Since 2015, if the defense intercepts or recovers a fumble during a conversion attempt and returns it to the opposite end zone, it scores 2 points.

Why people miss it: Before 2015, defenders simply gave up on conversion turnovers because there was nothing to gain. The incentive is new enough that many fans never re-learned the play.

38. How long does a team have to snap the ball after the play clock starts? Medium

Answer: 40 seconds after the previous play ends, or 25 seconds after certain administrative stoppages such as timeouts and penalties. Exceeding either draws a delay-of-game penalty.

Almost everyone says 30 seconds. The real numbers are 40 and 25, and the distinction between the two clocks rarely registers during a broadcast.

Draft Day Surprises Questions (39-45)

The draft is where scouting meets luck. The first pick in draft history chose foam rubber over football, a Hall of Famer went completely unpicked, and one team sent the wrong name to the podium. Seven questions, seven reminders that nobody actually knows.

From a quiet hotel ballroom in 1936 to a three-day television event.

39. What happened to Jay Berwanger, the very first NFL draft pick in history? Medium

Answer: He turned down pro football to become a foam rubber salesman. The Philadelphia Eagles drafted him first overall in 1936 and traded his rights to the Chicago Bears. He never played in the NFL.

The first pick chose rubber sales over a playing career. Riley Smith, selected second, became the first drafted player to actually play in the NFL. Source.

40. Which NFL team accidentally drafted the wrong player? Easy

Answer: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1982. They intended to take defensive end Booker Reese, but a poor phone connection between Tampa and New York led their representative to turn in guard Sean Farrell’s card instead. Source.

41. What is “Mr. Irrelevant” in the NFL Draft? Easy

Answer: The nickname for the last player selected in the entire draft, a tradition that started in 1976 with wide receiver Kelvin Kirk. The name is the trick. The last pick gets a week of celebrations in Newport Beach, California, and some go on to real careers: kicker Ryan Succop, the 2009 Mr. Irrelevant, played 14 NFL seasons and won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay.

42. How many rounds did the first NFL Draft have? Medium

Answer: Nine rounds in 1936. The draft later reached 32 rounds from 1943 through 1948.

The present seven-round format can make those wartime-era drafts sound implausible. The round counts are listed in the league’s historical record book. Source.

43. Which Hall of Fame quarterback went completely undrafted? Medium

Answer: Kurt Warner. He stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store for $5.50 an hour, played Arena Football, then won two NFL MVPs and Super Bowl XXXIV with the Rams. Tony Romo also went undrafted.

People remember the grocery store but forget he was completely undrafted, not a late-round flier. The 1994 draft ran 222 picks and included nine quarterbacks. Warner wasn’t one of them.

44. What 40-yard dash record did Xavier Worthy set at the 2024 NFL Combine? Hard

Answer: 4.21 seconds, beating John Ross’s 4.22 from 2017 by 0.01 seconds.

A hundredth of a second is the entire difference. That is a measured record improvement, not evidence that Worthy reached a proven limit of human acceleration.

45. Where was the first NFL Draft held, and how different was it from today? Hard

Answer: The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, on February 8, 1936. No television, no fans, no fanfare. Team owners sat around a table and called out names.

The contrast is the surprise. The same event now draws large crowds, draws tens of millions of viewers, and takes three days.

Stadium & Game Day Questions (46-53)

The last set covers cow leather, decibel records, and a referee’s frozen whistle. None of it lives in the usual stats-and-scores file. You can memorize every quarterback record and still have no idea a football weighs less than a pound.

From Arrowhead’s crowd record to the town where the game balls are made.

46. What is MetLife Stadium’s listed football seating capacity? Easy

Answer: 82,500, according to the stadium’s own venue guide.

A venue’s standard seating figure tells you how the football layout is designed, while the attendance at a concert or another special event can change with the position of the stage and the way the floor is used. Source.

47. Which NFL stadium holds the Guinness World Record for loudest crowd noise? Easy

Answer: Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs, at 142.2 decibels.

The trap: Seattle’s Lumen Field (formerly CenturyLink) is famous for crowd noise, so most people guess it first. Arrowhead took the record in 2014 and has held it since. Source.

48. How much does an official NFL football weigh? Medium

Answer: Between 14 and 15 ounces, just under one pound, inflated to between 12.5 and 13.5 PSI.

Everyone guesses heavier. The ball feels substantial in the hands, but it barely weighs a pound. The PSI spec became famous during the 2015 “Deflategate” controversy.

49. What is the “Terrible Towel” and who created it? Easy

Answer: A gold terrycloth towel waved by Pittsburgh Steelers fans, created in 1975 by broadcaster Myron Cope as a rally gimmick. A portion of sales proceeds supports the Allegheny Valley School, a facility for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

People know the towel and not the man. Cope’s son attended the Allegheny Valley School, which is why he directed the royalties there. Source.

50. How much regulation game-clock time does an NFL game contain? Medium

Answer: 60 minutes, divided into four 15-minute quarters.

That is game-clock time. Stoppages, halftime and television breaks make the event last longer, while overtime adds another period when required. It is separate from measuring the seconds when the ball is live. Source.

51. How many officials are on the field during an NFL game? Medium

Answer: Seven: referee, umpire, down judge, line judge, field judge, side judge, and back judge. The referee wears the white cap; the other officials have distinct positions and responsibilities.

52. What is the coldest NFL game ever played? Hard

Answer: The “Ice Bowl”, the 1967 NFL Championship Game between the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. Kickoff temperature: -13F (-25C).

People guess games from the 1990s or 2000s because those are fresher in memory. Nothing since has matched it. Referee Norm Schachter reported that his metal whistle froze to his lips. Source.

53. In which Ohio town does Wilson manufacture the NFL’s official game balls? Hard

Answer: Ada, Ohio. Wilson has made the league’s game balls there since 1955.

The company opened a new factory in Ada in 2024. The town has remained part of the ball’s story even as the building and production process have changed. Source.

What You Remember After the Game

Cover the answers and say them aloud before checking. Come back another day to the ones you missed. Research on retrieval practice studies the value of recalling information; it does not promise a retention rate for this football list.

LearnClash combines topic duels with scheduled review. Learning questions become due after seven days; Known questions after 90. A correct due review advances one stage, while a wrong answer drops one stage. Mastered questions leave scheduled review but can appear as limited reserves in gameplay. Start a football trivia duel.

• For another sport, try the basketball trivia questions. The trivia collection gathers the other topics.