2017 NFL Season
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50 free 2017 NFL Season trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The 2017 NFL season ended with one of the wildest Super Bowls ever played, and the road there was just as strange. A backup quarterback took over a title favorite in December. One team failed to win a game. A playoff game was decided on the final snap, and a referee settled a first down with something he pulled from his pocket. This quiz covers the whole 2017–18 campaign: the draft and the rookies who came out of it, the rule changes, the relocations, the anthem protests, the injuries that reshaped the playoff race, the individual awards, and the postseason through Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis. It is written for fans who watched every week and want to see what stuck, for quiz hosts building a football round, and for newer fans catching up on a season they missed. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which team lost all 16 games in 2017, joining the 2008 Detroit Lions as the NFL's only 0–16 teams?
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns went winless a year after finishing 1–15. Fans marked the season with a mock parade whose route formed a circle, for the number zero.
Q 02Which backup quarterback took over Philadelphia's offense in December 2017 and was named MVP of Super Bowl LII?
Nick Foles
Nick Foles had reportedly thought about retiring less than two years earlier. He threw for 373 yards and three touchdowns to beat New England 41–33.
Q 03What nickname stuck to the trick play on which the Eagles' quarterback caught a touchdown in Super Bowl LII?
Philly Special
The Philly Special had tight end Trey Burton throw the pass on fourth-and-goal just before halftime. A statue of the moment the play was called now stands at the Eagles' stadium.
Q 04Which Vikings receiver scored the last-play, 61-yard touchdown known as the Minneapolis Miracle in January 2018?
Stefon Diggs
Stefon Diggs caught a 27-yard pass, kept his feet when a New Orleans safety missed the tackle, and ran in. No NFL playoff game had ever been won in regulation on a touchdown as time expired.
Q 05Which quarterback, at age 40, became the oldest MVP in NFL history for his 2017 season?
Tom Brady
Tom Brady led the league with 4,577 passing yards, the oldest player ever to do so. He then threw for a Super Bowl record 505 yards and still lost.
Q 06Which quarterback did Kansas City trade up 17 spots to draft tenth overall in 2017?
Patrick Mahomes
Patrick Mahomes started just one game as a rookie, the Week 17 finale, while Alex Smith ran the offense. A year later he was the league's MVP.
Q 07Which Bengals quarterback got a flood of charity donations from Bills fans for ending their playoff drought?
Andy Dalton
Andy Dalton threw a touchdown with 44 seconds left to beat Baltimore, which put Buffalo in the playoffs. Most gifts came in $17 amounts, one dollar for each year of the drought.
Q 08What unusual object did referee Gene Steratore use to confirm a Dallas Cowboys first down in December 2017?
An index card
An index card, normally used for noting penalties, settled the measurement in Dallas's favor against Oakland. Steratore's last game as an official was Super Bowl LII, seven weeks later.
Q 09The 2017 NFL Draft was the first held entirely outdoors, on museum steps made famous by which film?
Rocky
Rocky made the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art famous, and the draft's outdoor theater was built on them. More than 250,000 people attended, the most in draft history to that point.
Q 10Which singer headlined the Super Bowl LII halftime show in February 2018, his third appearance at the event?
Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake paid tribute to Minneapolis native Prince, performing beside a video projection of him. His earlier halftime appearances came in 2001 and 2004.
Q 11NFL owners voted 31–1 in March 2017 to let the Oakland Raiders move to which city?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas won the vote with only the Miami Dolphins opposed. The Raiders then played three more seasons in Oakland while their new stadium was built.
Q 12Which team moved to Los Angeles in 2017 and played in the NFL's smallest full-season venue since 1956?
Chargers
The Chargers had last called the city home in 1960, their first season. Their temporary base was a suburban soccer stadium, where they stayed for three years.
Q 13Which unsigned quarterback filed a 2017 grievance accusing NFL owners of colluding to keep him out of the league?
Colin Kaepernick
Q 21Which pop star sang the national anthem before Super Bowl LII while suffering from flu symptoms?
Pink
Pink was seen taking something out of her mouth just before she began, and it turned out to be a throat lozenge rather than gum.
Q 22Which pizza chain, whose founder blamed anthem protests for weak sales, lost its NFL sponsorship after the 2017 season?
Papa John's
Papa John's and the league parted ways within months of the remark. Pizza Hut became the NFL's official pizza in February 2018.
Q 23Which Eagles center gave a fiery speech at the Super Bowl LII victory parade while dressed as a Mummer?
Jason Kelce
Jason Kelce defended his teammates and coaches one by one and compared the city's fans to hungry dogs. Mummers are the costumed marchers of Philadelphia's New Year's Day parade.
Colin Kaepernick had started a Super Bowl for San Francisco five seasons earlier. He withdrew the grievance in 2019 after a confidential settlement with the league.
Q 14Which newly retired quarterback replaced Phil Simms as lead analyst in the CBS booth for the 2017 NFL season?
Tony Romo
Tony Romo had lost his Dallas job to rookie Dak Prescott after a preseason back injury in 2016. In the booth he won praise for predicting plays before the snap.
Q 15Which Houston Texans star raised over $37 million for flood relief in 2017 after setting a goal of $200,000?
J.J. Watt
J.J. Watt was named Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year for the Hurricane Harvey appeal. His own season ended early when he broke his left leg.
Q 16What did the NFL's relaxed 2017 rules let players do again after scoring a touchdown?
Celebrate in groups
Players could celebrate in groups again, use the ball as a prop and go to the ground. Dunking stayed banned, because it can knock the goalposts out of line.
Q 17Which company paid $50 million to stream ten Thursday Night Football games in 2017, taking over from Twitter?
Amazon
Amazon put the streams behind its Prime subscription, where Twitter had shown the same games free around the world a year earlier.
Q 18Which star quarterback broke his collarbone on a hit from Minnesota's Anthony Barr in October 2017?
Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers needed surgery and played only once more that year. Green Bay went on to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
Q 19Which second-year quarterback was an MVP candidate until he tore his ACL against the Rams in December 2017?
Carson Wentz
Carson Wentz finished with 33 touchdown passes in 13 starts, a club record at the time. His team won that day and kept winning without him.
Q 20Which running back ended a one-year retirement in 2017 to play for his hometown Oakland Raiders?
Marshawn Lynch
Marshawn Lynch had announced his retirement during Super Bowl 50 by posting a photo of cleats hanging from a wire. Seattle still held his rights and traded him to Oakland.
Q 24By losing the NFC title game in January 2018, the Minnesota Vikings missed becoming the first team to do what?
Play a Super Bowl at home
No team had managed to play a Super Bowl at home, in its own stadium, until Tampa Bay did it three seasons later and won.
Q 25Which first-year head coach, hired at age 30, turned the NFL's lowest-scoring offense into its highest-scoring in 2017?
Sean McVay
Sean McVay was the youngest head coach in modern NFL history when the Rams hired him. They scored 478 points, more than double their 224 of a year earlier, and he was named Coach of the Year.
Q 26Which Super Bowl-winning coach left television in January 2018 for a ten-year, $100 million deal with Oakland?
Jon Gruden
Jon Gruden had spent nine seasons as an analyst on Monday Night Football. His first spell with the Raiders ended when they traded him to Tampa Bay for draft picks and cash.
Q 27Which veteran quarterback was benched in November 2017, ending a streak of 210 consecutive starts?
Eli Manning
Eli Manning sat out one game while Geno Smith started. Within two days the Giants had fired their head coach, and his interim replacement gave Manning the job back.
Q 28Which running back was named 2017 Offensive Player of the Year after leading the NFL in touchdowns and scrimmage yards?
Todd Gurley
Todd Gurley scored four touchdowns in a single December game, a 42–7 rout of Seattle. Two years earlier he had been the league's Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Q 29Which backup quarterback did New England trade to San Francisco in October 2017 for a second-round pick?
Jimmy Garoppolo
Jimmy Garoppolo won all five of his starts for a team that had been 1–10. San Francisco then gave him what was, at the time, the richest contract in NFL history by annual pay.
Q 30Which rookie fumbled on his first NFL carry in 2017 but finished the season as the league's leading rusher?
Kareem Hunt
Kareem Hunt shook off the fumble to gain 246 yards from scrimmage that night, the most in any NFL debut. He clinched the rushing title with a 35-yard run in the final week.