CANTON, Ohio — The Carolina Panthers beat the Arizona Cardinals 33-30 on Thursday night in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, scoring on a 5-yard touchdown run as time expired to win a game that, according to nearly every person the Reporter spoke with in the stadium, did not count.
“It’s preseason. None of it counts. You can’t read anything into it,” said Darrell Voss, 58, of Massillon, who said he has attended every Hall of Fame Game since 1994. “The score doesn’t mean anything.” Voss then described the winning drive, 13 plays and 65 yards, in its entirety, twice, including the part where he spilled a lemonade on a stranger.
The Reporter set out to determine what, precisely, does not count. The game was scoreless after one quarter and tied 17-17 at halftime. Arizona led 20-17 after three quarters, and the lead changed hands three times in the fourth, with the Cardinals going ahead on a 1-yard touchdown pass with 1:55 remaining. Both teams rested their regular starting quarterbacks. Asked which of these events did not count, Voss said, “All of it,” and asked which of them he would be discussing at work on Friday, he said, “All of it.”
Shortly after the final whistle, the Reporter observed two men in khakis and lanyards walking the field with a large canvas bag, into which they placed the evening’s 63 points, beginning with the field goals, which were the easiest to pick up. One of the men, who declined to give his name because he “wasn’t really supposed to be down here either,” said the points would be taken to a climate-controlled room beneath the Hall of Fame, where every point scored in the Hall of Fame Game since its first edition in 1962 is kept, uncounted, on steel shelving. He estimated the collection at about 2,500 points and said it smells “like a gym bag, but historic.” The last touchdown proved difficult to bag, as it had been scored with no time left on the clock and therefore, he said, “technically happened in no time at all.” It was eventually coaxed into the bag with a rolled-up program.
Dr. Marjorie Teller, director of the Center for Measured Outcomes, said the Center has studied preseason fandom since 2011 and found that fans say a preseason game “doesn’t count” an average of 6.2 times per game while recalling it in full 97.4 percent of the time. “The statement ‘it doesn’t count’ is, in our data, the most counted statement in football,” Teller said. “Further study is needed.”
Asked whether the Panthers would be allowed to keep any of their 33 points, the man in the lanyard said the team could “visit them.” Cardinals fans leaving the stadium asked whether they could have their 30 back, noting that they had come a long way and had nearly won. The request is under review.
The bag was last seen being loaded into a white van headed north on Interstate 77. Voss said he had not seen it, and that if he had, it wouldn’t have counted.