Football Squares for Week 1: Your Opening Sunday Plan

The offseason drags. Preseason gives you a taste but nobody's playing hard, and half the guys you actually want to watch are in a baseball cap on the sideline by the second quarter. Then Week 1 hits and suddenly all 32 teams are live on the same weekend. That's the moment a football squares board turns a normal Sunday into a thing you're texting your group chat about at 9 a.m.

Football squares for Week 1 have a built-in edge over every other week, and the calendar makes it easy. The 2026 season opens Wednesday, September 9, with the defending champion Seattle Seahawks hosting the New England Patriots. But the real party is the first Sunday, September 13, when the full slate kicks off and you've got a wall of games to pick from. If you've never run a board for opening weekend, this is your game plan.

Why Week 1 is the best board of the year

Every other week you're picking one game and hoping it's a good one. Week 1 gives you the whole buffet. There's no injury attrition yet, no teams tanking, no "well, they're resting starters." Everybody thinks they're a contender in September, so the games play like it.

That matters for squares because the fun of a board is people caring about the score in the third quarter of a game they'd otherwise ignore. On opening Sunday, every game is somebody's must-watch. Grab a marquee matchup and you'll have a full grid sold before kickoff.

If you're brand new to how any of this works, start with the beginner's guide to football squares. It walks through the 10x10 grid, the random number draw, and why you don't need to know a thing about football to win. The short version: 100 squares, each one gets a random pair of numbers (one for each team), and whoever holds the square matching the last digit of each team's score at the end of a quarter wins that quarter.

Pick your game before you pick anything else

The single biggest decision is which game your board rides on. A few ways to think about it:

The primetime slot is the safe bet. Sunday Night Football on opening weekend usually gets a strong matchup, and a night game means people have all day to fill squares and settle in. If you want everyone watching the same screen at the same time, go primetime.

The early window (1 p.m. ET) is where most of the games live, so if your crew has a specific team they all follow, ride with that one. A board is more fun when the people in it actually care who wins.

You can also run more than one. Nothing says you're stuck with a single grid. Some folks run a cheap all-day board on the afternoon slate and a separate one for the night game. Just don't overcommit and end up managing five boards solo. One good board beats three half-empty ones.

Set the board up the smart way

Here's the part people overthink. You don't need a spreadsheet, a group Venmo, or a printed grid taped to the office fridge (although that's a fine backup). On PickMySquare you create a free board, share the link, and let people claim their own squares. The numbers stay hidden until the grid fills, then they're drawn randomly so nobody can game the good digits.

A couple of setup calls worth making before you share the link:

Decide your payout spread early. Most Week 1 boards reward each quarter, with a bigger share for the final. That keeps people alive even if their square is dead by halftime. If you'd rather reward the whole game, you can weight the final score heavier. There's no single right answer, but decide before people join so nobody feels bait-and-switched.

Lock your fill deadline. Set a hard cutoff (kickoff, or a little before) so you're not chasing the last three squares while the anthem plays. An online board handles this for you, but say it out loud in the group chat anyway.

For the deeper mechanics of running a clean board, the how to run football squares walkthrough covers deadlines, no-shows, and how to handle the awkward "I never paid" conversation without it turning into a thing.

The numbers nobody tells you about

Once the digits are drawn, some squares are just better than others. Football scoring clusters around certain numbers because points come in 3s and 7s. The 0, 3, and 7 rows are gold. The 2, 5, and 9 rows are where hope goes to die.

Don't let that ruin the fun. The whole point of a random draw is that everyone had the same shot, and Week 1 especially loves a weird score. Two-point conversions, a safety, a defensive touchdown off a rusty September offense, and suddenly your 8-5 square is a winner. If you want to actually understand which numbers hit and why, the football squares strategy guide breaks it down without turning it into a math class.

Squares work for more than just the NFL

Opening Sunday is the obvious hook, but a squares board runs on any sport with a score. College football is in full swing by mid-September, so if your group is more Saturday than Sunday, point a board at a big rivalry game or a top-10 showdown. Same grid, same rules, different teams.

That flexibility is the quiet superpower here. You're not locked into one league or one weekend. You get the same board and the same quick setup whether it's an NFL Sunday, a Saturday college slate, a Monday nighter, or a bowl game in December.

Just to be clear on what we offer: squares boards cover any scored game, but bracket pools are a March Madness thing only. When the calendar flips to spring, that's when the bracket pool side comes alive. For now, in September, squares is your move.

Keep the energy going all season

The best Week 1 boards aren't one-and-done. Set the grid up once, see how much your group loves it, and you've basically got a standing weekly ritual. A lot of hosts start with opening Sunday and end up running a board every week through the playoffs.

The trick is making it stupid easy to come back. When people can claim squares from their phone in ten seconds and get a text when they win, they show up again next week without you begging. That's the difference between a one-time novelty and the thing your friends actually look forward to.

Football Squares Week 1 FAQ

When does the 2026 NFL season start?
The season kicks off Wednesday, September 9, with the Seahawks hosting the Patriots. The first full Sunday slate is September 13, which is the sweet spot for an opening-weekend board.

How many people do I need for a Week 1 board?
A standard grid has 100 squares, but you don't need 100 different people. Plenty of boards run great with 10 to 20 folks each grabbing a handful of squares. Fill what you can and draw the numbers when the grid is full.

Do I have to know football to run or win a board?
No. The numbers are drawn at random after everyone picks, so winning is pure luck of the digit. It's genuinely one of the few pool games where the person who's never watched a snap can walk away with the bragging rights.

Can I run a squares board for a college football game instead?
Absolutely. Squares work for any game with a score, so a big Saturday college matchup runs exactly the same as an NFL Sunday. The setup is identical.

What's the difference between squares and a bracket pool?
Squares are a per-game grid you can run for any sport all season. Bracket pools are only for NCAA March Madness. If it's football season, squares is what you want.

How long does it take to set up a board?
About two minutes. You name the board, pick the game, share the link, and let people claim their own squares. The numbers stay hidden and get drawn randomly once the grid fills.