NFL Preseason Week 1 Totals: Why the Books Leave Money on the Table Every August
Every summer, sportsbooks post their first NFL preseason totals at numbers that look conservative. They are not being cautious. They are being wrong. From 2002 through 2025, NFL preseason Week 1 games averaged a posted total of 36.9 points. Those games averaged 38.7 combined points. The books underpost the line by roughly 1.8 points every single year.
That gap is not noise. It is structural, and it is driven by a specific market failure: books have no preseason film when they open Week 1 lines. They anchor to regular-season team quality, apply a generic "exhibition game" discount, and land somewhere too low. By Week 2, they overcorrect. The pattern repeats.
Training camps opened across the league this week. Preseason games begin August 6 with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton. Week 1 of the full preseason schedule runs August 13 through 15. The window to get ahead of the market is open now, before these lines harden.
The Market Failure, Quantified
The numbers are not close.
Betting every single Week 1 over from 2002 through 2025, regardless of matchup, team quality, or any other factor, returned +9.5 flat-bet units over the sample. That is a blind system applied to 23 seasons of data. The return exists because the books' starting point is consistently too low.
In 2025, the pattern was extreme. Week 1 full-game overs finished 14-2-1. First-half overs went 13-4. Bet Labs flagged both marks as the best single-week over performance in the past 20 years. That is one season, and outliers happen. The 23-year base rate is what makes it meaningful.
Why Books Get Week 1 Wrong
To understand the mispricing, you need to understand what information books have when they open preseason lines.
For regular-season games, books draw on full seasons of film, real performance data, injury history, and week-by-week betting patterns. The line-setting process is well-calibrated because the input data is rich.
For preseason Week 1, books have none of that. Training camp is two weeks old. No preseason film exists. The only data available is from the prior regular season: last year's scoring averages, last year's offensive and defensive ratings, last year's starters.
Books know that starters play less in the preseason than in the regular season. So they apply a discount. The problem is that the discount is generic. It does not account for how much starters play in Week 1 compared to later preseason weeks. It does not account for the fact that coaching staffs have not yet locked in their approach for limiting playing time. And it does not account for the fact that Week 1 opponents are themselves anchored to the same wrong discount, producing two slightly-better-than-expected offenses competing in a game the total treats as a backup scrimmage.
Preseason totals are typically posted 5 to 10 points below regular-season equivalents. A team that averaged 24 points per game in a regular season context gets priced at roughly 18 to 19 in a Week 1 preseason line. Combined: roughly 36 to 38. This is where 36.9 comes from. And actual combined scoring consistently runs about 1.8 points ahead of that estimate.
The 37 Threshold
There is a specific number that makes Week 1 actionable rather than directional.
Looking at 15 years of preseason totals data, when a preseason game opens with a total at or below 37, the over hits approximately 60% of the time. When the total opens above 37, the under hits at roughly 56%.
Week 1 average posted total: 36.9. That number sits right at the threshold, meaning the average Week 1 game opens in or near the over-favored zone.
This is not a coincidence. The 37 threshold exists because of how books calibrate preseason discounts. When they land in the 34-to-37 range, they have over-discounted the scoring. When they land above 37, they have not discounted enough. Week 1 lines cluster at the low end. Week 2 lines cluster above the threshold, and the pattern flips.
What Happens in Week 2
The Week 2 data is the clearest evidence that the Week 1 market is structurally mispriced.
After Week 1's high-scoring games, books react. The average Week 2 posted total jumps from 36.9 to 39.1. That is a 2.2-point upward correction across the market in a single week.
Actual scoring does not jump. It moves from 38.7 to 38.8. One-tenth of a point. Scoring in preseason Week 2 is essentially flat compared to Week 1, but the books have posted totals 2.2 points higher. The result: unders hit at 56.2% in Week 2 across 368 graded games from 2002 through 2025, returning +25.9 flat-bet units.
The books overcorrect. They see Week 1's high-scoring results, move their numbers up, and land on lines that are now too high for what happens in Week 2. The scoring environment stays roughly the same. The line moves substantially. Unders dominate.
This is the complete picture. Week 1 posted too low, overs win. Week 2 posted too high after the overcorrection, unders win. The same fundamental dynamic, expressed in opposite directions, caused by the same root problem: no preseason film forces the books to guess, and their first guess is consistently worse than their second guess.
By-Week Summary
| Week | Avg Posted Total | Avg Actual Score | Gap (Actual minus Posted) | Edge Direction | Historical Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 (HOF game) | ~35.0 | varies | uncertain | Study each year | Small sample, use as data point only |
| Week 1 | 36.9 | 38.7 | +1.8 | Over-favored | +9.5 flat-bet units (2002-2025) |
| Week 2 | 39.1 | 38.8 | -0.3 | Under-favored | 56.2% unders, +25.9 flat-bet units (2002-2025) |
| Week 3 | ~36.3 | ~33.2 | -3.1 | Under-favored | Under hits at higher rate as starters play less |
Week 3 presents a different dynamic entirely. Starters barely play. The third and fourth strings run the field goal unit for four quarters. Books know this and post conservative totals, but actual scoring craters even further. Week 3 unders carry their own historical edge for different structural reasons. This piece focuses on Week 1, where the edge is largest and least recognized.
Starter Playing Time: The Misunderstood Variable
The conventional wisdom about preseason betting is that starters barely play, so totals should be low and unders should win. This is correct for Week 3. It is wrong for Week 1.
In Week 1, most coaching staffs plan to play their starters through the first half or a significant portion of it. The game serves as the first real competitive evaluation of the offense after two weeks of training camp. Coaches who are evaluating quarterback competitions need meaningful reps. Teams with unsettled positions play their starters longer to gather data, and those starters are competing hard to win a job.
The result is two hours of football where first-team offenses are operating against first-team defenses, with most starting quarterbacks taking meaningful snaps under game-speed conditions. This is not the backup parade of Week 3. Books that post a 36.9 combined total are implicitly assuming less starter involvement than what happens in Week 1.
Tracking which teams have unsettled QB competitions adds another layer. Teams still deciding their starter need more first-team reps in Week 1 than teams with settled depth charts. They play their quarterbacks longer. In 2026, multiple teams enter camp with genuine battles at quarterback. Those matchups project toward more starter playing time in Week 1, not less.
Coaching Tendencies and the Harbaugh Effect
Coach philosophy shapes how much first-team offense hits the field in any given preseason week. Not every head coach treats Week 1 as an evaluation opportunity. Some coaches protect their starters deliberately, keeping them out of preseason action entirely or limiting them to token appearances.
The most studied example in recent years is John Harbaugh. During his time as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, Harbaugh ran a 40-21 against-the-spread record in the preseason. Part of his edge was a consistent willingness to play starters longer and with higher intensity than the market assumed.
Harbaugh is now with the New York Giants. He has stated publicly that he intends to play starters more in preseason than his predecessor did at that organization. Giants Week 1 preseason totals are worth tracking closely when lines are released. A coach with that track record and that stated philosophy, coaching a team the market undervalues for starters' preseason involvement, is exactly the matchup configuration that produces the over.
The general principle: before placing a Week 1 total bet, check beat reporters covering each team. Lines are often posted two to three weeks before the game. If a coaching staff signals heavy starter involvement in Week 1, and the total is sitting at or below 37, the structural case for the over compounds with a specific matchup catalyst.
The First-Half Bet as the Sharpest Expression
If Week 1 total bets carry the most edge in the preseason, first-half total bets in Week 1 carry even more. The logic is straightforward: the starters play the first half. The backups play the second half. If the edge comes from starter involvement being underweighted by the market, the first half is where that edge is most concentrated.
In 2025, first-half overs in Week 1 went 13-4. That is an 76.5% over rate on a bet that most casual bettors ignore because they are focused on full-game lines. The first-half market is thinner, which means books invest less effort calibrating it. A thin market with less calibration produces more mispricing, and the historical record in 2025 shows it.
Structurally, a first-half bet captures only the window when starters are on the field and eliminates the back half of the game when the edge disappears. It is a more precise expression of the same thesis.
Books post Week 1 totals at 36.9 because they are applying a generic preseason discount to regular-season data. Starters play most of the first half in Week 1. The first-half total bet captures that window directly, before the backup parade erodes the scoring environment in the second half.
The 2026 Preseason Calendar
The 2026 NFL preseason opens Thursday, August 6 with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio. The Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals square off at 8:00 PM ET on NBC. This game operates as a standalone event separate from the official three-week preseason schedule.
Preseason Week 1 runs August 13 through 15. The Thursday, August 13 slate alone includes six games: Detroit at Cincinnati at 7:00 PM, Green Bay at Pittsburgh at 7:00 PM, Indianapolis at New England at 7:30 PM, Los Angeles Chargers at Houston at 8:00 PM, Arizona at Las Vegas at 8:00 PM, and Tennessee at San Francisco at 9:00 PM. Friday and Saturday games fill out the week.
Lines for these games will open in the coming weeks. Books are currently working from training camp reports, last year's performance data, and their standard preseason discount models. The edge exists precisely in this window: before games are played, before the market gets corrected by real Week 1 results, and before books move their numbers for Week 2.
At DraftKings and FanDuel, preseason lines typically go live three to four weeks before the games. Monitor the Week 1 totals as they post. When you see a total at or below 37, you are in the historical edge zone. When you see a coaching situation that projects toward extended starter playing time, the case compounds. When you are looking at a first-half total on a game with those two factors, you have the sharpest version of the bet.
What the Pattern Does Not Tell You
A 23-year base rate matters. It does not guarantee a result in any individual game. The 2025 Week 1 overs went 14-2-1. The prior year, the pattern was less extreme. Structural edges produce winning percentages in the range of 55 to 60 percent, not 90 percent. Applied consistently, they generate flat-bet unit returns over large samples. Applied to individual games, they produce losses roughly 40 to 45 percent of the time.
The structural edge from Week 1 line mispricing does not protect you from a game where two quarterbacks combine for three interceptions and both starting units give up early. It gives you a starting point that is on the right side of the line more often than not.
Position battles matter. If both teams have locked-in starters and coaches have said publicly that the primary goal of Week 1 is to limit injury risk, the assumption of heavy starter involvement weakens. The historical base rate is still there, but specific game-level information changes the probability.
Team-level histories matter. Some franchises have consistently low-scoring preseason games. Some coaches genuinely protect starters. The base rate is a starting point, not the final answer. The process is: identify games where the total is at or below 37, research starter involvement expectations, and bet where both the structural and situational evidence points the same direction.
The Checklist for Week 1 Total Bets
- Total posted at or below 37: this places the game in the historical over-edge zone (approximately 60% over rate over 15 years).
- At least one team with an unsettled starting position: coaching staffs play starters longer when they need evaluation data.
- Head coach on record about playing starters: teams with coaches who have stated an intent to play starters early benefit from the structural edge most directly.
- First-half total available: if yes, this is the sharper expression of the same bet.
- No specific reason to expect abbreviated starter action: injuries to the starting QB, travel fatigue, or explicit coach statements about limiting preseason reps should reduce your confidence in the over.
The edge in Week 1 totals is not a secret. The historical numbers are publicly available. What turns it into a working bet each August is applying the base rate only where the situational evidence does not contradict it. The market will not perfectly price away a structural inefficiency that has persisted for 23 years. Books are in the same position they are always in when Week 1 lines open: no preseason film, the same discount model, and the same tendency to underpost totals that starters will exceed.
Week 2, they will adjust. They always do. That adjustment is also tradeable, in the opposite direction. For now, it is Week 1, the lines are about to be posted, and the historical record says the over is the side.