Heading into Monday night’s matchup, teams had combined to average 50 points per game, the highest-scoring Week 1 of the NFL-AFL merger era.
Read more Supreme Court blocks sweeping mail ballot restrictions for midterm elections
If you felt like you couldn’t catch your breath during the opening games of the NFL season, well, neither could the defenses.
Traditionally, defenses start faster than offenses — it’s harder to organize an attack than it is to smash into it — but not this week. Heading into Monday night’s game between the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs, teams had combined to average 50 points per game, the highest-scoring Week 1 of the NFL-AFL merger era that began in 1970..
Any time a statistical outlier emerges, the most likely scenario is that it represents a fluke. And indeed, this week, many of the best offenses happened to face many of the worst defenses. But the explosion follows the offseason hiring of 21 new offensive coordinators. It could also reflect a shift in the way teams prepare.
Read more Gavin Newsom says he won’t run for president if Kamala Harris does
Former longtime Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, now an NBC analyst, thought there might be something to that. Teams tend to focus practices more on skill development than on running into one another. As a result, Tomlin mused Sunday on the NBC broadcast, “defenses spend less time shedding blocks and tackling than they used to.”
They certainly didn’t get much practice doing either one during the games this week.
Catch up quickly every weekday morning with a rundown of the 7 most important and interesting stories. Sign up for The 7 newsletter.
Read more ‘Grand conspiracy’ probe of Trump foes goes on after prosecutor’s departure
