Field goals nearly matched touchdowns across the NFL preseason's first 33 games — and in six, the winner made no more touchdowns than the team it beat, but more field goals

The box score is built to reward the touchdown as the point of the exercise and the field goal as the consolation. Read every point scored in the 2026 NFL preseason's opening weeks and the two have nearly traded places. We pulled the complete scoring record of the 33 games already final — the Hall of Fame opener plus the first two full preseason weekends, every game ESPN files under the preseason for schedule weeks one through three — and counted each scoring play. The teams reached the end zone 123 times and split the uprights 112 times; one safety rounds out the ledger. Field goals were 47% of all scoring plays and 28% of all points: of the 1,200 points scored across the 33 games, 336 came off a kicker's foot. Those were not chip shots. Of the 112 made field goals, 33 — nearly a third — traveled 50 yards or more, with a median make of 43 yards. The longest belonged to Kansas City's Harrison Butker, a 69-yarder against Tampa Bay as the first half expired; it is longer than any field goal made in a regular-season game, though preseason kicks do not enter the record book, as CBS Sports and Yahoo Sports both noted. ^mmodeled The same split appears in the outcomes, not just the totals. Of the 33 games, 32 produced a winner (Indianapolis and New England tied 13-13). In 6 of those 32, the winning team scored no more touchdowns than the team it beat — and in every one, it made more field goals. In five the touchdown counts were level and the winner made more field goals; in one the winner made fewer touchdowns, Tennessee's 19-16 result over Seattle, on a single touchdown to Seattle's two. Tennessee appears twice: its 19-13 result over San Francisco paired one touchdown with four Joey Slye field goals. Across the two games Slye made eight kicks, four of them from 50-plus, including makes of 58, 55, 55 and 53 yards.

The following is analysis, not fact. The preseason did not turn into a coin flip. The team that gained more total yards still won 26 of the 32 decided games, and the team that held the ball longer won 23 — the sides that played better mostly won. What shifted is the composition of the scoring. Here touchdowns and field goals were nearly even as scoring plays — 123 to 112 — and in six games the winner made more field goals than the loser while scoring no more touchdowns. Why the field goal carried this much freight is a question the record raises without settling. Preseason offenses run stripped-down playbooks with rotating, mostly backup personnel, and drives stall short of the goal line: teams turned red-zone trips into touchdowns just 54% of the time across the 33 games. That is a pattern consistent with roster-evaluation football rather than a claim about any one team's offense — the numbers show the association, not a cause. ^sspeculative The whole-record point is the one a single box score hides: on touchdowns alone, five of these six games are level and in the sixth the winner scored fewer; what separates the teams in the box score is entirely the field-goal column. A month of football that looks like an audition for skill players has, in its scoring, been as much an audition for legs.

This is a scoped read of a defined, complete set — the 33 games of the Hall of Fame opener plus the first two preseason weekends — not a claim about the whole exhibition slate; the third and final preseason round has since been played and is not part of this frozen capture. Preseason results also carry no standings weight and are played largely by roster hopefuls, so these six are partly a story about how few touchdowns either side managed, not a new law of the sport — and not a sign the better team lost: across all 32 decided games the side that out-gained its opponent still won 26, and the side that held the ball longer won 23. The sample is small, the makes include unusually long ones that may not repeat, and none of it counts once the regular season starts.

**View from a kicker on the roster bubble:** a preseason in which a third of made field goals come from 50-plus is exactly the audition the position rarely gets — a 55-yarder in August can be the difference in a roster decision. **View from a coach resting starters:** the touchdown drought is the point, not a flaw; the games are for evaluating depth, and a reliable leg that turns stalled drives into three points is a real answer to a real question. ^mmodeled