Yes, and the bigger the spread, the stronger the effect. In our 1,087-game sample, the point-spread favorite scored the game's first touchdown 59.8% of the time. For favorites of three or more points that rises to 62.1%, and for favorites of seven or more, 65.6%. Double-digit favorites scored first in 81.6% of their games.
Home-field advantage by itself is much weaker than people assume: home teams score the first touchdown just 54.5% of the time, and nearly all of that is explained by home teams being favored more often. Once you control for the spread, the venue adds almost nothing.
Our model's team-side engine is built directly on this relationship: each one-point move in the spread shifts first-touchdown probability by just under two percentage points. A pick'em home team scores first 51.7% of the time; a seven-point home favorite, 64.4%.
Source: 1,087 regular-season NFL games, 2022–2025, official play-by-play. Full method on the methodology page.