“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
You’ve most likely heard or even used this metaphor at some point; while it’s a little cliché, its purpose is to shift someone’s perspective from short-term urgency to long-term sustainability and serve as a useful reminder to pace yourself.
Good luck telling NFL offenses that, especially after a historic opening week to the 2026 regular season.
The initial strides out of the season’s starting blocks looked more like ones belonging in a 100-meter dash than a 26.2-mile race, particularly from a scoring standpoint. The 32 teams combined to rack up 791 total points, matching the highest-scoring Week 1 since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger with an average of 49.4 points per game, per NFL research. Nearly a third of the league (10 teams) scored 30-plus points, tying for the third-most ever in Week 1, trailing the 1986 (12 teams) and 2002 (11) seasons.
It didn’t look like the Minnesota Vikings were going to be part of that exclusive club in the early stages of their season opener against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Minnesota’s opening offensive possession lasted just two plays, the latter of which resulting in an interception on Kyler Murray’s first regular-season pass attempt as a Viking. Unfortunately for the Vikings, Murray’s debut in purple didn’t last much longer before he was ruled out due to a concussion he suffered at the end of a scramble.