NEW YORK — The NFL's highest-scoring Week 1 is within reach, with Monday night's Broncos-Chiefs finale positioned to break the record. Via Mark Maske of Front Office Sports, 750 total points have been scored through 15 games, leaving the league just 41 points short of the all-time Week 1 mark. With 42 or more points between Denver and Kansas City, the record will fall, led so far by the Bears' 59-point explosion in Charlotte.
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 offered an explanation for the pinball machine-level scoring on NBC. "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 also pointed to a specific early-season advantage for mobile quarterbacks, noting that defenders aren't allowed to tackle quarterbacks in practice. That lack of live tackling work, combined with fewer padded practices overall, has left defenses playing catch-up in September.
The league has long tweaked rules to encourage more offense, and high scoring remains a priority. If the Broncos and Chiefs deliver at least 42 points on Monday night, the NFL is expected to issue a press release on Tuesday touting Week 1 of the 2026 season as the highest-scoring Week 1 of all time.