In football, your digits
are everything.
We analyzed 7,276 NFL games from 1999–2025 — regular season and playoffs — to find which squares on a 10×10 board are gold and which are dead on arrival.
Football Digits Are Wildly Uneven
In basketball, every digit from 0 to 9 shows up roughly 10% of the time. Football is a completely different game. Touchdowns (6 + 1 PAT = 7) and field goals (3) create massive clustering around specific digits. The digit 0 appears in 17.0% of final scores. The digit 7 appears in 16.8%. Meanwhile, 2 shows up just 4.2% of the time and 5 only 4.3%.
That's a 13-point spread between the best and worst digits — compared to just 1.3 points in basketball. In football, which digits you draw determines almost everything.
Why 0, 7, 3, and 4 Dominate
Football scoring is built on two numbers: 7 (touchdown + extra point) and 3 (field goal). Stack those up and the math is predictable. One touchdown is 7. Two touchdowns: 14 (digit 4). Three: 21 (digit 1). A touchdown plus a field goal: 10 (digit 0). Two field goals: 6. Three field goals: 9. Two touchdowns plus a field goal: 17 (digit 7 again).
The digits 0, 3, 4, and 7 appear in the most natural scoring combinations. Digits like 2 and 5 require unusual outcomes — a safety (2 points) or a missed extra point — which is why they're so rare. Your square's digits matter more than anything else on the board.
The Diagonal Tax? Barely Exists.
In basketball, diagonal squares (where both teams share a digit) are 25–30% less likely to hit. In football, the diagonal penalty is just 1.2× — almost negligible. Why? Because the digit frequency effect is so dominant that it overwhelms the margin effect. A square like [0-0] sits on the diagonal at 1.99%, but that's still better than most off-diagonal cells in the 2, 5, or 9 rows.
In basketball, the advice is "avoid the diagonal." In football, the advice is simpler: get the right digits, and don't worry about whether they match.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2.0 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 3.4 | 2.2 | 0.7 | 1.4 | 3.7 | 0.8 | 0.7 |
| 1 | 1.3 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 2.4 | 0.3 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 1.2 | 0.5 |
| 2 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 0.5 |
| 3 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 0.4 | 1.5 | 2.3 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
| 4 | 2.3 | 1.9 | 0.6 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 3.2 | 0.8 | 0.7 |
| 5 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| 6 | 1.9 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.7 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 0.7 |
| 7 | 3.4 | 1.5 | 0.6 | 2.1 | 3.3 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 1.9 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
| 8 | 1.2 | 1.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| 9 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.9 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
Best & Worst Squares
What 7,276 Games Taught Us
Data sourced from nflverse's open game database covering every NFL regular season and playoff game from 1999 through 2025 — 7,276 games total. For each game, we record the last digit of each team's final score. The heatmap shows the per-cell probability: "if you own exactly this square, how often does it hit?" All 100 cells sum to 100%.
Source: nflverse/nfldata (GitHub) · Analysis: ZapSquares IQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best numbers for NFL squares?
Based on 7,276 games, the best individual square is [0-7] at 3.71%. The entire top 5 — [0-7], [7-0], [0-3], [7-4], [4-7] — is made up of 0, 3, 4, and 7 combinations. If your square has two of those digits, you're in great shape.
What are the worst numbers for NFL squares?
The worst square is [2-2] at just 0.05% — roughly 1 in 2,000 games. The bottom 5 all involve digits 2, 5, and 9. If you draw any combination of those digits, your odds are extremely low.
Why do 0 and 7 show up so much?
Football scoring is built on touchdowns (7 points with the extra point) and field goals (3 points). Common scores like 7, 10, 14, 17, 21, 24, 27, 28, 31, 34 all end in 0, 1, 3, 4, or 7. Scores ending in 2, 5, 8, or 9 require unusual events like safeties, missed extra points, or two-point conversions.
Is the diagonal penalty important in football?
Barely. In basketball, diagonal squares are 25–30% less likely. In football, the penalty is just 1.2×. The digit effect is so powerful that it overshadows the diagonal entirely. A square like [0-0] is on the diagonal but still hits at 1.99% — better than most off-diagonal squares with bad digits.
How different are football squares from basketball squares?
Completely different. In basketball, all digits are roughly equal (10% each) and strategy revolves around avoiding the diagonal. In football, four digits (0, 3, 4, 7) combine for 61% of all occurrences, and strategy is entirely about which digits you draw. The best football square is 74× more likely than the worst. In basketball, that ratio is about 3×.