First Things First

Think your favorite team can lose early and still win the Super Bowl?  Don’t bet on it.   While some NFL head coaches insist, "It’s not how you start but how you finish," history tells a much different story. The sense of urgency for winning in week one of the regular season has become shockingly evident. And while overcoming an opening day loss is possible, it doesn’t bode well for an NFL club planning on playing the first week in February.

The past 40 Super Bowl winners have an opening day record of 33-6-1. The 1967 Packers had the lone tie vs. Detroit in the era before sudden death overtime. Not until 1981 would the eventual champion 49ers break the 13 year streak and lose their opener. The message is obvious. Some teams are good enough to overcome early season adversity. Most aren’t.

Clubs that paint themselves into a corner are usually stuck there til the paint dries. By that time, any hope of even making the playoffs has all but dried up as well. One of the rare exceptions had to be the 1993 Dallas Cowboys. Losing their first two regular season games, Jimmy Johnson’s team was on the brink of disaster. But the loss in week two to Buffalo was only hours old when owner Jerry Jones swallowed his pride, opened his checkbook and hurriedly signed holdout running back Emmitt Smith. It turned out to be money well spent since Dallas repeated as Super Bowl champions.

More recently, 2001-2003 saw three straight seasons where the eventual Super Bowl winner lost on opening day. Twice it was the New England Patriots who, in 2001, not only lost their first two games but three of their first four. In all their success that followed, this stat is usually forgotten.

Likewise, the 2002 Tampa Bay Bucs found themselves in a battle with New Orleans in their opener. As overtime was winding down, a fluke special teams play allowed the Saints the game winning touchdown. This bump in the road would also be ignored thanks to head coach Jon Gruden and the team’s dominating defense, particularly in the postseason.

For teams making but losing the Super Bowl, the statistic is nearly identical. Over 40 seasons those clubs have a 34-5-1 mark in week one, Miami starting the 1971 season with a tie vs. Denver.

With a loss of concentration near game’s end, the 1969 Vikings wound up losing their opener to the N.Y. Giants, 24-23. All that final score did was give Giants fans a false impression of head coach Alex Webster.

Obviously the New England Patriots have a flair for the dramatic as the eventual losers of SB XXXI lost their first two regular season games in 1996. It’s the NFL’s version of Russian Roulette. But be forewarned, most of the time, every chamber’s loaded.