What Is a Pick Six in Football? I Counted 1,287 NFL Pick Sixes

A pick six is an interception that the defense returns for a touchdown. "Pick" is football slang for an interception, and "six" is what a touchdown is worth. The defender catches a pass meant for the other team and runs it all the way back into the opponent's end zone, and his team scores without its offense ever touching the ball.

It's also one of the best predictors of who wins a game. I went through the NFL's play-by-play for every regular-season pick six from the 1999 season through Week 7 of the 2026 season, 1,287 of them, and the team that scored one won 77% of those games. Score two in the same game and that team went 64-4.

Here's how the play works under the rules, what happens after one, and what 28 seasons of pick sixes show, including which quarterbacks have thrown the most.

The Pick Six Rule in Plain English

You won't find "pick six" in the rulebook. It's two official things happening on the same play: an interception and a touchdown.

• The interception. The 2026 NFL rulebook says an interception is made "when an opponent who is inbounds catches a forward or backward pass or a fumble that has not touched the ground" (Rule 3, Section 2). The ball stays live, and the defender can run with it.

• The touchdown. If he carries it into the other team's end zone, it's a touchdown, worth 6 points (Rule 11-1-2). Same value as any other touchdown.

That's all a pick six is. Any defender who intercepts the pass can score one.

Dictionary.com calls "pick six" an informal term and says it caught on in the early 2000s. College football works the same way: a touchdown is worth 6 points under the 2026 NCAA football rules book (Rule 8-1-1).

What Happens After a Pick Six

A pick six is treated like any other touchdown from there.

What isn't a pick six

• An interception that's fumbled before the goal line. The ball is live again (Rule 3, Section 2, Note 2), and either team can recover it.

• An interception in the defense's own end zone that's downed there. That's a touchback, and the defense starts at its own 20.

• A fumble returned for a touchdown. It's a defensive touchdown, but there was no pass, so there's no "pick."

There's one more twist that surprises people. If a defender intercepts a pass near his own goal line and his momentum carries him into the end zone, where he's tackled, it isn't a safety. The defense gets the ball at the spot where he established possession (Rule 11-5-1, Exception 2).

The pick two

A pick can also happen on a two-point try. If the defense intercepts the try and returns it all the way to the other end zone, the defense scores 2 points (Rule 11-3-2-b). Fans call that a pick two.

The best example: on December 4, 2016, Kansas City safety Eric Berry returned an interception for a touchdown against Atlanta, then intercepted a two-point try in the fourth quarter and took it back for the 2 points. The Chiefs won 29-28. In the play-by-play, I found only six regular-season pick twos from the 2015 season through Week 7 of 2026, Berry's included.

How Often Pick Sixes Happen

From 1999 through 2025, there were 1,281 pick sixes in 6,964 regular-season games. That's about one every five or six games, and roughly 1 in every 10 interceptions (10.0%) went back for a touchdown.

But the play is getting rarer.

Regular season only.

The 2012 season had 71 pick sixes, the most of any season in my data. The 2024 and 2025 seasons had 28 each, the fewest. Per game, that's a drop of 63%, from 0.28 to 0.10.

Two things are going on at once:

• Defenses are intercepting fewer passes. Interceptions per game fell from 2.26 in 1999 to 1.40 in 2025.

• Fewer of those interceptions go back for six. In 2012, 15.2% did. In 2024 and 2025, it was about 7%.

The 2026 season started even slower: 6 pick sixes in the first 107 games, through Week 7, all of them in Weeks 1 through 4. That's 4.1% of the 146 interceptions in those games. It's a small sample, and 2026 isn't finished, so I left it out of the table above.

The Team That Scores a Pick Six Usually Wins

This is the stat I keep coming back to. Of the 1,218 times a team scored at least one pick six in a game (1999 through Week 7 of 2026), it won 938. That's 77.0%. No ties.

And it hasn't changed much in 28 seasons.

That's a correlation, not proof that the pick six decides the game. Better teams may simply get more of them. But a pick six puts at least 6 points on the board for the defense and takes a possession away from the offense, and the team that gets one has won about three times out of four.

The most in one game in this stretch was three, by the Minnesota Vikings against the New York Giants on November 25, 2007. Minnesota won 41-17.

When Pick Sixes Happen and How Far They Go

The fourth quarter has the most pick sixes, almost a third of them.

How long were the returns? The median was 40 yards, and the average was 44.5.

The longest two in this stretch both belong to Ed Reed of the Baltimore Ravens: a return from 8 yards deep in his own end zone against Philadelphia in Week 12 of the 2008 season, and one from 6 yards deep against Cleveland in Week 9 of 2004.

The Quarterbacks Who Threw the Most Pick Sixes

These are regular-season pick sixes thrown from 1999 through Week 7 of 2026. For quarterbacks who started before 1999, like Brett Favre and Peyton Manning, earlier seasons aren't counted.

Matthew Stafford is in a class of his own here. He's thrown 33, 23 with the Lions and 10 with the Rams, and about one of every six of his interceptions has gone back for six. Steve is a Rams fan, so 10 of those came on his team. The Rams as a franchise (counting the St. Louis years) have thrown 60 pick sixes since 1999, tied with Detroit for the most in the league.

Philip Rivers is the one I know best. I'm a Chargers fan, and 24 of his 26 came with the Chargers, including 5 in the 2015 season. If you want more on his career, I wrote about Philip Rivers here.

The single-season record belongs to Jameis Winston, who threw seven pick sixes for Tampa Bay in 2019, the first quarterback ever to throw that many in a season, according to CBS Sports. That was the same season he became the first quarterback with 30 touchdown passes and 30 interceptions in a season.

The Defenders Who Scored the Most

Same caveat: only pick sixes from 1999 on are counted, so players who started in the 1990s, like Woodson, Sharper and Barber, had earlier seasons that aren't here.

The single-season record is newer. Dallas cornerback DaRon Bland returned five interceptions for touchdowns in the 2023 season, breaking the record of four shared by Eric Allen (1993), Jim Kearney (1972) and Ken Houston (1971), according to NFL.com. Nobody else in my data had more than three in a season.

By team, the Buccaneers and Bears have scored the most since 1999, 56 each. The 2012 Bears had 8 by themselves, the most by any team in a season in my data. Steve's Rams are next on that list, with 7 in 1999. My Chargers (counting the San Diego years) have scored 35 and thrown 39.

Quick Answers

What is a pick six in football? An interception that the defense returns for a touchdown. "Pick" means interception, and "six" is the touchdown's 6 points.

How many points is a pick six worth? Six, like any touchdown. Then the team that scored tries for 1 or 2 more points on the Try.

Who kicks off after a pick six? The team that scored the pick six, same as after any touchdown.

What is a pick two? An interception on a two-point try that the defense returns to the other end zone. It's worth 2 points for the defense.

How common is a pick six? From 1999 through 2025, 1,281 in 6,964 regular-season games, about one every 5.4 games. Roughly 1 in 10 interceptions went back for a touchdown.

Who has thrown the most pick sixes? From 1999 through Week 7 of 2026, Matthew Stafford, with 33. Jameis Winston holds the single-season record with seven in 2019.

Who holds the record for most pick sixes in a season? DaRon Bland of the Dallas Cowboys, with five in 2023.

Final Thoughts

I played some football growing up and still play light flag football, and the pick six is the play everybody remembers. Turns out it's also one of the most decisive. Teams that get one win 77% of the time, and teams that get two almost never lose. The play just doesn't happen as much as it used to: 28 in each of the 2024 and 2025 seasons, compared with 71 in 2012.

How I got the numbers: every count comes from nflverse play-by-play for the NFL regular season, 1999 through Week 7 of 2026 (games through October 26, 2026). A pick six here is an interception where the intercepting team scored the touchdown on the same play. I checked the season totals against ESPN's team defensive stats: pick sixes match exactly in every season from 2001 through 2026, along with 1999. ESPN has 51 for 2000 to the play-by-play's 50, and the play-by-play is missing one 1999 game and two 2000 games. Win rates, quarters, return lengths and player totals are my own counts from the play-by-play. Playoffs aren't included.

If you want more football rules with the numbers behind them, I counted every safety and broke down the touchback. I also timed how long a football game actually lasts and looked at the history of the Hail Mary, another pass play famous enough to get its own name.

Sources:

• NFL: 2026 Official Playing Rules

• NCAA: 2026 Football Rules Book

• nflverse play-by-play data

• NFL.com: DaRon Bland sets NFL's single-season pick-six record

• CBS Sports: Jameis Winston sets two interception records

• Dictionary.com: pick six