The San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins played in rainy conditions on a miserable Sunday afternoon at FedEx Field. Thanks to playing on the FedEx Field grass, both teams decided to run the ball a total of 65 times ... which led to the shortest NFL game in 10 years.
The 49ers' 9-0 win over the Redskins took just 2 hours and 36 minutes, which was the shortest NFL game since the New England Patriots defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 35-7 in Week 16 of the 2009 season, per NFL Research. In that game, which took the same amount of time as the 49ers' win on Sunday, the Jaguars and Patriots combined for 61 total running plays, keeping the football on the ground 53.5 percent of the time. The Redskins and 49ers ran the football 65 times in 103 plays, 63.1 percent of the time.
How did this game compare to the shortest games in NFL history? Checking back to 1996, the shortest game recorded was 2:29, which the then-San Diego Chargers won 26-19 over the Indianapolis Colts. Since 1996, only six games have been shorter than Sunday's Redskins-49ers game. The Tennessee Titans' 23-0 win over the Indianapolis Colts in Week 16 of the 2008 season lasted just 2:33. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 34-3 win over the Atlanta Falcons in Week 15 of the 2007 season lasted just 2:34. The Pittsburgh Steelers played in two games (2005, 2007) that lasted 2:35, a 3-0 win over the Miami Dolphins (2007) and a 34-7 win over the Titans (2005).
The average time of NFL games this season is 3:07:01, the longest since 2016 (3:07:08). The league has been tracking average game time since 2010, which will make the Redskins-49ers game even more impressive as it's the shortest game this decade.
