The Average NFL Score: 2018 Edition

The 2018 NFL season was certainly memorable, from the players to the games themselves. Rookie stars like Baker Mayfield, Saquon Barkley, and Phillip Lindsay made history. Patrick Mahomes torched every field he stepped on, becoming only the third quarterback in history to have 50 passing touchdowns in a single season. Tom Brady became the first person to ever win six Super Bowls as a player.

The games were memorable too, such as the Cleveland Browns nearly having a winning season after going 1-31 the previous two years, the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs had the first NFL game in history where both teams scored at least 50 points, and a Roughing the Passer or Pass Interference call incorrectly changed the tide of at least a couple games every Sunday.

There were plenty of good, bad, and ugly moments, but on the whole, it was an exciting season. Right? Well, that depends on your definition of a “good” game. For me, a good game has both teams scoring around 20 points, with a turnover or two for some extra excitement. Let’s look at the scoring, total yardage, and turnover averages of all 267 regular season and playoff games:

• Winning score: 28.7
• Winning total yards: 378.8
• Losing score: 17.8
• Losing total yards: 325.4
• Total turnovers: 2.7

So the average NFL game would meet my expectations, but that’s too general. What about home field advantage? I want my team to be good at home so I can see them win in person. Lucky for fans, that was probably the case. 158 of the 267 games (59%) were won by home teams, and a large majority of teams had a winning record at home. Only eight teams had home losing records: the Redskins, Broncos, Lions, Giants, Jaguars, Jets, Raiders, and Cardinals.

Here are the averages of every game where the home team won:

• Home score: 29.3
• Home total yards: 384.7
• Away score: 18.2
• Away total yards: 326.9
• Total turnovers: 2.8

If you attended a home game your team was likely to win, and probably with a higher score than an away win. Sounds pretty good! Lastly, what about when you decided to attend? It’s disappointing to see your team get eliminated from playoff contention and then play sluggishly the rest of the season, either due to a lack of motivation or trying to “tank” and get a better draft position. But tickets are expensive and you want to watch some quality football, so the games in Week 17 were hopefully just as competitive as Week 1. Here are some weekly averages:

Losing teams tried slightly less towards the end of the season, but that makes sense. If you’re losing for most of the game, go ahead and let it happen and get the better draft position. But it didn’t change much, just over a field goal’s worth of difference, so they were still starting games with the intent to win.

All things considered, NFL fans should be satisfied with the 2018 season. There were definitely some bad moments (looking at you, conference championship referees), but overall it was a good year. Thanks for reading, and I’ll leave you with some fun facts:

• Most points scored by a winning team: Los Angeles Rams, 54
• Least points scored by a winning team: Jacksonville Jaguars, 6
• Most points scored by a losing team: Kansas City Chiefs, 51
• Least points scored by a losing team: Arizona, Green Bay, Washington, Dallas, Buffalo, Tennessee, New York Giants, and Indianapolis all got shut out.
• Most combined points: LAR vs KC, 105
• Most yards by a winning team: Dallas Cowboys, 576
• Least yards by a winning team: Miami Dolphins, 168
• Most yards by a losing team: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 576
• Least yards by a losing team: Washington Redskins, 89
• Most combined yards: OAK vs CLE, 1052
• Most combined turnovers: LAC vs DEN, 8
• Best game: LAR vs KC
• Worst game: Super Bowl LIII (seriously that was just awful)

As always, special thanks to ESPN and Pro-Football-Reference for all statistics. Please follow me on Twitter @somekidadam!