Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season tied the post-merger record for the highest-scoring opening week, averaging 49.44 points per game across the 16-game slate.
The only other post-merger Week 1 to average 49.44 points per game was 2012, per a query of Stathead data.
The all-time high belongs to 1943, when 52 points were scored in a lone Week 1 game. Three other pre-merger opening weeks also had higher scoring averages: 49.63 points per game in 1968 and 49.50 in both 1954 and 1967.
This year's scoring surge was fueled by the Chicago Bears beating the Carolina Panthers 59-37, along with Buffalo’s 36-31 win over Houston, Detroit’s 31-30 overtime win over New Orleans and Cincinnati’s 33-27 win over Tampa Bay.
The 2026 and 2012 opening weeks also share the
record for most total points, with 791 scored across 16 games in each season.
However, modern seasons have a built-in advantage as there are more games each week thanks to the NFL’s expansion through the years. As such, earlier years with fewer games naturally produced lower-scoring weekly totals.
That Bears-Panthers contest also set a record on its own for the highest-scoring Week 1 game in history. With 96 total points, it broke the previous record — a 48-40 Tampa Bay-New Orleans contest in 2018 — by eight points.
Chicago missed out on a record by itself, however. The Bears’ 59-point total tied for second-most in Week 1 history, behind the 62 points Atlanta scored against New Orleans to open the 1973 season.
Carolina’s 37-point output is tied for sixth-most by a losing team in a Week 1 game.
Across the full 2025 regular season, games averaged 46.0 combined points. The season-long NFL record is 49.6, set during the pandemic-affected 2020 season.
Methodology: Data for opening-week NFL games comes from Stathead.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL Week 1 ties scoring record in 2026 after historic offensive outburst
