Research
Monday Night Football scoring
Primetime games carry a reputation — sloppy, defensive, low-scoring. We tested it: every regular-season NFL game since 2006, sorted by kickoff slot in US Eastern time, with each game's total compared against that season's league average so rule changes and scoring eras cannot do the talking. Where a closing total exists, we also checked the result against the market.
The short answer
Monday night games score almost exactly like every other game. The season-adjusted gap is -0.34 points (Welch t = -0.45, df ≈ 419, p ≈ 0.65, Cohen's d ≈ -0.02). This is a null result, and we publish it as one: the "primetime unders" story is not visible in the scoreboard.
Against the closing total the picture leans Under — 46 Unders, 31 Overs, 2.4 points below the line on average — but only 79 Monday games carry a line in our data and the gap misses significance (t = -1.89, df = 78, p ≈ 0.06). It is directional evidence only.
By kickoff slot
| Slot | Games | Avg total | vs season avg | With line | vs close | Over / Under |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday night | 358 | 44.6 | -0.41 | 79 | -2.44 | 31 / 46 |
| Thursday night | 263 | 44.8 | -0.47 | 66 | -0.63 | 27 / 39 |
| Sunday night | 338 | 46.7 | +1.66 | 76 | -1.72 | 30 / 44 |
| All other games | 4,229 | 44.9 | -0.07 | 943 | +0.83 | 467 / 467 |
Regular season, 2006–2026 season to date. Pushes excluded from Over/Under counts. Sunday night's +1.7 season-adjusted figure is shown for context and was not the tested question.
Method
- Monday night = Monday kickoff at or after 5 PM US Eastern, which keeps doubleheaders.
- Season adjustment: each game's total minus that regular season's league average.
- Comparison: Welch's two-sample t-test with Welch–Satterthwaite degrees of freedom; the market test is a one-sample t on result minus closing total.
- Minimum 40 games per group; the closing-line sample (79) clears it but is small, so it is labelled directional.
- Weather is not controlled here — this is a slot study, not a weather study.
What it means on a Monday
The slot itself does not move scoring, so the useful question each week is the one the slot can't answer: what the weather does after dark. See this week's Monday Night Football weather read, and the NFL wind and totals study.
Where this is applied
These findings feed the game-time read on every NFL venue page, using the same sample-size and significance rules published here.
Cite this research
Free to republish with a visible credit and a link to this page. Ready-made citations below — click to copy.
Frequently asked
Do Monday Night Football games score more or less?
No meaningful difference. Across 358 regular-season Monday night games since 2006, scoring was 0.34 points below other games after adjusting for season (Welch t = -0.45, df ≈ 419, p ≈ 0.65).
Do Monday night games go Under the total?
Directionally, yes — 46 Unders to 31 Overs, averaging 2.4 points below the closing total — but only 79 games carry a closing line, and the gap is not statistically significant (t = -1.89, df = 78, p ≈ 0.06). Treat it as directional only.