With one regular season week of the 2023 National Football League season complete, we’ve seen it all. The eventual Super Bowl Champion has opened their season, and they are likely one of the 16 teams that won last week. Of the first 57 Super Bowl winners, 47 of them won their season opening game.
Only one eventual Super Bowl winner started their triumphant season with a loss at home, that was the 2002 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Jon Gruden’s first year as the Buccaneers head coach landed him in a Super Bowl against the team he had coached the prior four seasons. It was almost unfair, and the Bucs drilled the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII, 48-21.
Twenty-four of the 57 teams that went on to win a Super opened their season at home. They were 23-1 straight-up. If we are to allow tendencies of first week results to guide our thinking on future games this year, we can eliminate a few teams that were serious contenders seven days ago and are now left in a miniscule percentage for the possibility of winning it all this year.
The Kansas City Chiefs loss at home, a one point defeat to the Detroit Lions, can allow us with some collateral evidence to deduce that Andy Reid’s boys are not going to be the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls since the 2004 New England Patriots.
First week results also knocked out three other squads from serious Super Bowl consideration by virtue of dropping their opening home game. That trio of squads that fall into an unlikely start for a team destined to win the Super Bowl are the Los Angeles Chargers, Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers. Sunday’s results gives rise to the prospects of the Cleveland Browns, who beat the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Jacksonville Jaguars, who downed a competitive Indianapolis Colts squad.
Nine Super Bowl winners lost in the opening weekend on the road, while 24 road teams won. Suffice it to say, a team headed to the Super Bowl most likely won on opening day. If our numbers bear out to be as forecasting as they have in the past, then the teams that were most challenged by their opponent but went on to win are teams to consider most seriously as a viable Super Bowl winning candidate.
The Bengals were among the favorites to win the American Football Conference, and their opening road loss in Cleveland cast a shadow on those prospects. A loss this week against a talented Baltimore Ravens squad, would put their Super Bowl aspirations on life-support early in the season. But what does it do for Cleveland? The victory last week against the Bengals was decisive, 24-3, and now the Browns look for a second straight win when they meet another AFC North Division opponent, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In this contest, the winner last week is in a horrible situational spot in Pittsburgh. This is a Steelers squad no doubt focussed after a 23 point opening day loss to the 49ers. When Cincinnati opens their home season against John Harbaugh's team, they are looking to avoid falling into a statistical nightmare where only three of the 57 Super Bowl winners opened with two losses. The Dallas Cowboys did it in 1993, but that season Emmitt Smith was missing from the first two games during a holdout. In 2001, the New England Patriots opened with back-to-back losses, but their season got turned around when Tom Brady replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe. The only other team to win it all after recovering from an 0-2 start was the New York Giants in 2007.
It is a quickdraw for a number of experienced NFL handicappers to bet on quality teams bouncing back in Week Two after an opening loss. That would seem to put a buy order out on the Chiefs, Bengals and Buffalo Bills. Buffalo lost their opener to the Jets and now host the Las Vegas Raiders.
But I do believe that the automatic buy on Kansas City is misguided.
I don’t think the Browns win over the Bengals was nearly as revealing as the Jacksonville Jaguars triumph in Indianapolis. The Browns were a home team underdog against a Bengals squad they had beaten five straight times on their home field. The Jaguars, conversely, were not in a good motivational spot. In fact, Jacksonville was in a huge motivational hole that made them a near certainty for a down effort against the Colts.
The Jaguars were coming off recent successes and had swept their preseason slate and had the Chiefs next on their schedule. You couldn’t blame them for throwing in a clunker on the road in their opener.
They didn’t.
They won by double-digits while both winning the game and covering the point spread. This is pretty heady stuff.
Now, they go from that trap to a home game against a Kansas City team that lost its opener in a spot they traditionally should have won. Previous defending Super Bowl Champions opening at home to kickoff an NFL season were 14-3. In other words, last week the Jaguars won when they shouldn’t have, and Chiefs lost where they should have won.
And who is the underdog this week in Jacksonville?
If the Jaguars were able to win last Sunday when so much criteria was against them, I sure am looking forward to having them when pregame factors weigh in their favor. The idea that the Chiefs bounce back with a win has history on its statistical side, but the more important factor is always the unique circumstances present in a particular matchup.
Like here, where we get a team playing better and getting points at home.
Qoxhi Picks: Jacksonville Jaguars (+3) over Kansas City Chiefs