Led by the Bears’ 59-point explosion in Charlotte, the NFL’s first week of the season has seen pinball machine-level scoring.
And the all-time Week 1 record is in reach.
Via Mark Maske of Front Office Sports, the 750 total points scored through 15 games fall only 41 short of the all-time Week 1 record. So with 42 or more between the Broncos and Chiefs on Monday night, the record will fall.
In his first Week 1 without coaching one of the NFL’s 32 teams since 2006 (when he was the Vikings’ defensive coordinator), Mike Tomlin shared his thoughts on the matter on NBC. He pointed to the current methods of practice and preparation.
“There’s less violence in team development,” Tomlin said. “There are less padded practices. And even the drills that they do are more geared toward skill development, 7-on-7, and things of that nature. Defenses spend less time shedding blocks and tackling than they used to 25 years ago when I came in the league.”
Tomlin has also said that mobile quarterbacks have an edge early in the year, because defenders aren’t allowed to tackle quarterbacks in practice.
The NFL likes high-scoring games. Over the years, the rules have been tweaked to encourage more of it. Which means that there surely will be a press release on Tuesday with all sorts of statistics about the scoring in the Week 1 games.
And, with at least 42 points tonight, a headline that Week 1 of the 2026 season was the highest-scoring Week 1 of all time.