2020 NFL Week 15 Score Report

• This week was breakneck for the weekly scoring record.  In the 14 games Thursday, Saturday, and the main part of Sunday, the NFL racked up 760 points, an average of almost 54 a game.  The NFL only needed 99 points from the two remaining prime-time games to get to the record of 859.
• They got 26 from the Giants and Cleveland Sunday night and 44 on MNF as the Steelers lay a third consecutive egg with the Bengals.  (Oh, is UrinatingTree going to have "fun" with this...)
• So that means they fall 29 points short, an average of 51.875 per game.
• The season average, off of 11,092 points in 224 games, is 49.518.
• The NFL now stands just 870 points from the record for a 256-game season of 11,962, set two years ago.  With a record week, they could get it next week.  More likely, it'll be Week 17.  But with only needing an average of 27.2 a game to get it...
• And the all-time per-game average of 47.2 (when the NFL only had ten teams in 1948!!) is now just 991 points away.  That would require an average of just under 31 a game.
• They're going to bust the record books, and it's not, unlike two years ago, going to be CLOSE.
• Home teams, 8-8 for the week, 111-112-1 for the year.  Getting dangerously close to an under-.500 record for home teams, when the usual winning percentage is almost 60%.
• Over was 10-6 for this week (no surprise), 109-110-5 for the season.
• Favorites were 7-9 against the number and 11-5 straight up.  (Season:  96-122-3 against the number, 147-74-1 straight up)
• Team with more penalties was 6-8 for 90-101-1 for the year.
• Two Cliffhangers this week.  Forty for the year.
  
• Ten games finished within one score.  121 is the total with two weeks to go.
  
• Three non-competitive games for 67 for the year.
• Five Last Chance Misses for 71 for the year.
• Second time in three weeks we got a four-bagger.  This one in Las Vegas.  (And the intervening week, we had a Triple Cliffhanger.)  Las Vegas was driving in a tie game, but got picked inside the Charger 25 with 1:51 to go.  Then the Chargers drove, missing a field goal with 53 seconds left -- overtime.  The Raiders get the ball first, and eat up over 60% of the ten minutes to get a field goal as the drive stalls out inside the 5.  Then the Raiers (no D) get chomped to bits for the winning TD, and they're basically done as far as playoffs go.  Double Cliffhanger, Double Last Chance Miss.
• Interesting stat #1:  If you need to know WHY the scoring exploded again this week...  There were only 156 accepted penalties.  9 3/4 a game through the entire schedule.
• Interesting stat #2:  The New York Jets were -17 against the Rams, and became only the fifth NFL team, according to Yahoo Sports, to win as an underdog of 17 or more.
• According to the betting website "Action", it is the biggest against-the-spread upset the NFL has seen in at least 25 years.
  
• Interesting stat #3:  According to ProFootballReference and the Action website, this is only the second time in NFL history since at least 1985 in which two two-touchdown underdogs won -- the first was Week 6 2017 (Giants over Broncos, Dolphins over Falcons, both -14).