A number the league has never posted before
Week 1 of the 2026 season produced 52.43 points per game across the opening schedule. No week in the history of the league has ever gone higher. Eleven of the 32 teams put up at least 30 points, which ties for the second most in any opening round.
Opta’s analysts have been working through which of those numbers describe a genuine shift and which are noise from a single weekend. Their view on the league-wide scoring rate is blunt: it will not hold. Small samples inflate, defences catch up, and September offences rarely look the same in November.
What matters more is which individual performances came with something underneath them.
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Chicago’s ground game looks real
The Bears ran the ball 39 times for 291 yards and six touchdowns in a 59-31 win over Carolina. Their 7.46 yards per carry led Week 1 by a distance, with no other team clearing 5.80.
The track record supports it. Ben Johnson’s Chicago side finished third in rushing yards per game last season at 144.5, and went past 200 rushing yards in three separate matches. Going back to his years as Detroit’s offensive coordinator, his offences have recorded eight games of 200 or more rushing yards since 2022, tied for the fourth most of any coordinator or head coach in that period.
The caveat is the opponent. Carolina ranked 20th against the run in 2025, which is not the test Chicago will face every week.
San Francisco’s defence is the quieter story
The 49ers held the Rams to a single touchdown in a 27-7 win and forced two turnovers. Their pressure rate of 53.3% ranked fifth in Week 1 and would beat any full season figure under Kyle Shanahan. Their open rate allowed of 74.1% would do the same.
That unit finished dead last in success rate allowed in 2025, at 46.8%. Fred Warner is healthy again, Dre Greenlaw is back alongside him, and Raheem Morris is now running the secondary. If the pressure and coverage numbers survive contact with a full season, the defence that carried San Francisco from 2021 to 2022 is back in business.
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