The facts
The NFL’s 16 opening-week games produced 791 points, tying the 2012 season for the most Week 1 points in the Super Bowl era. Teams averaged 49.4 combined points per game, and six Sunday games reached at least 60.
Chicago’s 59-37 victory over Carolina produced 96 points, the highest total ever recorded in an NFL Week 1 game. Seattle’s 13-10 win over New England occupied the other end of the chart.
Our calculation from the final scores found that all 16 games ended with different victory margins. They ranged from Detroit’s one-point overtime win over New Orleans to Jacksonville’s 24-point dismantling of Cleveland.
Minnesota scored 29 unanswered points to beat Green Bay 39-22, including 22 points within 2 minutes and 46 seconds during the fourth quarter. The Vikings became the first NFL team to trail by at least 12 points with fewer than 20 minutes remaining and still win by at least 17.
In Australia, San Francisco arrived a week before facing Los Angeles. The Rams arrived only 28 hours before kickoff and lost 27-7.
Kansas City running back Kenneth Walker III accumulated 191 scrimmage yards against Denver, exceeding the Broncos’ entire offensive total of 176. Denver missed 28 tackles and surrendered 247 yards after missed tackles, the NFL’s highest recorded total since at least 2018.
Our take
The league spent the offseason installing defensive schemes. Several teams apparently printed theirs on wet cocktail napkins and left them in an Uber.
Seven hundred ninety-one points is not an opening weekend. It is the scoreboard being waterboarded.
Carolina scored 37 points and lost by 22. Most teams that score 37 get a victory shower. The Panthers received an autopsy. Chicago reached 59 while Carolina’s defense explored an innovative concept called watching the other guy run past.
Green Bay produced a different species of fuck-up. The Packers led by 12 with fewer than 20 minutes remaining, watched Minnesota score 29 unanswered, and somehow lost by 17. Matt LaFleur removed three points from the scoreboard to attempt fourth-and-1 because he wanted to “go for the throat.” He returned guaranteed points to the store and purchased a turnover on downs.
The Rams deserve special recognition for treating an intercontinental football game like a DoorDash order. San Francisco arrived in Melbourne a week early. Los Angeles rolled in 28 hours before kickoff, presumably shook the Pacific Ocean out of its ears, and lost 27-7. You cannot raw-dog a trans-Pacific flight, step onto a football field and act surprised when your internal organs believe it is breakfast.
Denver brought one of the league’s most celebrated defenses to Kansas City and missed 28 tackles. That is nearly two complete rounds of every defender getting an opportunity to fuck it up. Walker alone gained more yards than Denver’s entire offense, turning the Broncos into an expensive orange escort service.
Detroit nearly donated a 21-0 lead to New Orleans before escaping 31-30 in overtime. The Saints matched Detroit’s overtime touchdown, attempted a winning two-point conversion and missed. That game traveled from execution to resurrection to accidental burial without stopping to wash its hands.
Baltimore scored 41. Buffalo hung 36 on Houston. Jacksonville reached 34 and allowed Trevor Lawrence to sit through the fourth quarter because Cleveland had already been folded back into the shipping box.
Meanwhile, Seattle and New England combined for 23 points in the week’s lonely defensive struggle. Surrounded by flaming scoreboards and abandoned tackling fundamentals, they looked like two accountants quietly dividing a restaurant bill during an orgy.
Week 1 might be a liar. At least the bastard had the decency to lie loudly.
