The NFL will offer plenty of offense this Christmas, with two of the top offenses in the league set to square off and four games with an over/under set at 51.5 points or more in Week 16. So many high point totals shouldn’t be a surprise, according to analysts from TheLines, which tracks odds in U.S. regulated sports betting markets. In fact, the NFL is on a historic scoring pace.
Sunday night’s game between the Tennessee Titans, which leads the NFL with 31.1 points per game, and Green Bay Packers, which is third at 31 points per game, promises two of the most prolific scoring teams in the NFL. Total points for the game as of Monday morning is 56, according to a consensus of the nation’s largest legal online sportsbooks — including DraftKings, FanDuel, PointsBet, PlaySugarHouse, BetMGM, Unibet, and William Hill. No game has offered more points this season.
But games offered at 50 total points or more have not been uncommon this year. In fact, there were five such games in Week 15 alone. Points have been up significantly all year. Through the first 15 weeks, NFL teams are averaging 24.8 points per game, up dramatically from 22.8 points per game in 2019. Barring a points outage over the season’s final games, it should break the scoring average record of 23.6 points per team per game, set in 1948.
“In a season of anomalies, we may never see so many high point totals again,” said Brett Collson, lead analyst for TheLines.com. “There are so many reasons why scoring is up, and many of them are related to the pandemic, from fewer distractions with teams being in relative isolation to quiet stadiums helping road teams stay in sync. Regardless, oddsmakers continue to do well in making adjustments.”
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