Mike Porto: Could you settle a question please? During the first couple of weeks of the NFL season are the offenses ahead of the defenses? Are more points scored early or later in season and why?
The answer is no, the offenses are not ahead of the defenses. Over the past six seasons, teams have averaged fewer than 20 points per game in both Week 1 and Week 2. The only other week where teams average fewer than 20 points is Week 11. The general trend here is that the offenses start slightly behind, peak at midseason, and trail off very slightly at the end. I thought this might be because of weather effects, because some of those games at the end are played in cold weather. However, I did a graph of average points scored each week, with trendlines. Blue/black is all games, and brown/red is only dome games. You'll notice that there is more scoring indoors, but there is also the exact same trend where scoring goes up at midseason and then drops in December.
