--- title: jeopardy contestants stumped by NFL Football Question description: “If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die,” Alex Trebek told contestants on Jeopardy canonical: https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-02T16:07:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:50:16.487Z og:title: Alex Trebek Burnt Contestants For Not Knowing Football Facts og:description: “If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die,” Trebek said on Jeopardy og:url: https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46da8db0bd8a88b9/6988fa58656a3f39d3bd35f5/trebek.jpg?branch=production&width=1198&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1198 og:image:height: 674 og:image:alt: Trebek og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alex Trebek Burnt Contestants For Not Knowing Football Facts twitter:description: “If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die,” Trebek said on Jeopardy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46da8db0bd8a88b9/6988fa58656a3f39d3bd35f5/trebek.jpg?branch=production&width=1198&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Alex Trebek Sacked All the Jeopardy Contestants For Their Total Lack of Football Knowledge > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Feb 2, 2018 4:07 PM UTC  by [Melissa Locker](https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/) ## Melissa Locker Feb 2, 2018 4:07 PM UTC _Jeopardy_ contestants are expected to know a lot of facts about, well, everything. The game show does revolve around trivia, after all, and contestants need to know about history, music, arts, literature, celebrities, and, naturally, [sports](http://time.com/money/5127457/nfl-cheerleaders-career-pay-salary/?iid=sr-link2). In advance of the [Super Bowl](http://time.com/money/5125340/2018-super-bowl-prop-bets/?iid=sr-link5), Thursday night’s episode of _Jeopardy_ included a series of questions on [football](http://time.com/5128528/football-players-early-death/?iid=sr-link3). The contestants avoided the category as long as possible, but when there were no other questions to ask, they had no choice but to tackle football. Sadly, none of the contestants were able to answer a single question about the sport or its history or rules correctly and host Alex Trebek had to call a penalty. When the category’s final clue was revealed, Trebek had seen enough of the contestants’ clear lack of gridiron knowledge to know that the category was going to end not in a [touchdown](http://time.com/5121094/super-bowl-2018-olivia-culpo-danny-amendola/?iid=sr-link7), but a sack. “If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die,” he said, dryly. The show wasn’t done trolling their own contestants, though. _Jeopardy_’s Twitter feed sent out a fun fact that burned not only the people vying for dollars on their show, but the poor, unsuspecting Cleveland Browns, too: “Our contestants answered as many clues in this category as the @Browns had wins this season.” > [](https://twitter.com/Jeopardy/status/959267654438547456) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/"},"headline":"Alex Trebek Sacked All the Jeopardy Contestants For Their Total Lack of Football Knowledge","datePublished":"2018-02-02T16:07:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:50:16.487Z","description":"“If you guys ring in and get this one, I will die,” Trebek told the contestants","url":"https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Games","viral","Bizarre","Jeopardy","Sports"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46da8db0bd8a88b9/6988fa58656a3f39d3bd35f5/trebek.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt46da8db0bd8a88b9/6988fa58656a3f39d3bd35f5/trebek.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trebek","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5128708/jeopardy-contestants-stumped-by-football-question/","name":"Alex Trebek Sacked All the Jeopardy Contestants For Their Total Lack of Football Knowledge"}}]}] ```