NFL offenses were literally too busy scoring in Week 1 for coaches to have much time for scoreboard watching, but the final numbers were unexpectedly high. A whopping 791 points, or a combined 49.4 per game, were scored in Week 1, matching the most for any Week 1 in the Super Bowl era.
“I was definitely surprised to look up at the scoreboard on Sunday and see some of the scores at halftime,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator Zac Robinson said. “The Carolina-Bears game, it was crazy. I typically don’t see that in Week 1.”
The Chicago Bears had a 31-24 lead on the Carolina Panthers at halftime and ended up winning 59-37. That was one of six games that had 60-plus total points scored, two more than any other opening weekend in NFL history. Week 2 opened with the Buffalo Bills beating the Detroit Lions 41-31, suggesting the Week 1 scoring explosion might not be an outlier.
The Jacksonville Jaguars had a 31-0 lead on the Cleveland Browns three minutes into the second half on Sunday, but Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski was busy enough in postgame that he didn’t fully appreciate just how many points were scored until he caught up by watching the NFL RedZone’s wrap-up, which shows every single touchdown scored during Sunday’s slate in one glorious clip.
“RedZone does the touchdown montage at the end of the day, and I took a quick break from looking at Denver and getting stuff ready for this week, and you notice: ‘Man, this montage is going on forever,'” Udinski told me. “Then you start looking at scores, and you say, ‘Oh, OK, this makes more sense.’ It wasn’t until you got tape in from around the league that you realized all the stuff that some of those offenses, like Chicago did, and really lit it up.”
Three teams — the Panthers, Houston Texans and New Orleans Saints — scored 30 or more points and lost, something that’s happened just once ever in Week 1 (2002). So why such a spike in scoring? Is it a trend likely to continue deep into the 2026 season, or a symptom of ever-changing approaches to preseason games — where fewer starters play to avoid the risk of injury — and even training camp practices, which don’t have nearly as much contact and actual tackling as they used to have?
“I watched some around-the-league stuff, and it felt like guys just were making plays,” Robinson said. “There [were] a ton of performs being made after the catch … defenses are so restricted with what they’ll do based mostly on the foundations [before] you get to reside tackling, and it is a completely different ballgame.”
The dearth of physicality in making ready for an NFL season could make even the very best defenses look rusty of their first video games. The Denver Broncos, who had a top-three protection final 12 months in factors and whole yards allowed, recorded 28 missed tackles of their humbling 31-10 loss to the Kansas Metropolis Chiefs on Monday evening.
Kenneth Walker rushed for 179 yards after contact (per Professional Soccer Focus) within the Chiefs’ Week 1 win over the Broncos. (Picture by David Eulitt/Getty Photos)
Excessive-leverage conditions favored offenses in Week 1. Not a single NFL crew transformed half their third-down alternatives final 12 months. But, in Week 1, 9 groups had been higher than 50%, and three had been above 70% on conversions. Crimson zone? Essentially the most environment friendly offense within the NFL obtained touchdowns on 70% of their journeys contained in the opponents’ 20-yard line, however in Week 1, there have been 9 groups that obtained touchdowns on each red-zone alternative that they had.
“The dearth of alternatives to go reside and deal with, whether or not it is preseason or coaching camp, I feel much less and fewer groups have reside intervals the place you are truly tackling ball carriers to the bottom,” Udinski informed me. “It is exhausting to account for these yards once you’re practising a number of the issues that present up with completely different angles of tackles.
“Even sacks on quarterbacks, the place a man may be blown down earlier than a defensive finish will get a hand on a quarterback, and now, they’re in a recreation and the quarterback can escape and lengthen performs. A play might need gotten blown lifeless, however subsequent factor you realize, you are in a scramble and you’ve got had restricted reps in scramble drills.”
Jaxson Dart wasn’t sacked within the Giants’ season-opening win because the Cowboys had a four-man stress price of simply 10.0%, their lowest in a recreation in 5 years, based on Subsequent Gen Stats. (Picture by Wealthy Graessle/Icon Sportswire through Getty Photos)
Yet one more issue to contemplate within the excessive scoring: NFL video games are hardly ever hotter than in Week 1 with mid-September highs, and 6 openers had temperatures at kickoff recorded at 89 levels or hotter. You mix that conditioning concern with gamers testing their stamina by taking part in a full recreation normally for the primary time in eight months.
“There are not any two-a-days. They’re by no means on the sphere for 3 and a half hours on a given day,” Udinski mentioned.
If the document scoring was a shock to some, it wasn’t to Las Vegas oddsmakers, because the 16 Week 1 scoring totals had eight video games go over their over/beneath level totals and eight video games fall quick. Thursday’s Payments-Lions recreation had an over/beneath of 54.5 factors — 4 factors greater than any Week 1 recreation — and the 2 groups nonetheless cleared the over by 16.5 factors ultimately.
The scoring explosion was led by the Bears, and their head coach, Ben Johnson, has expressed a crew purpose of changing into the highest-scoring crew in NFL historical past. Scoring 59 in an opener is a superb begin towards that, because the document for a whole season is 37.9 factors per recreation, which was scored by the 2013 Broncos.
So, Chicago will be three touchdowns a recreation worse than they had been Sunday and nonetheless fulfill their purpose of changing into the highest-scoring crew ever. That is how excessive the bar was set by Week 1 this season.
