When I started in the Oakland Raiders front office in 1973, the National Football League played six preseason games. That number, in recent years, has been cut in half. While there are not as many preseason games, there are a lot more scrimmages teams arrange with opponents to enhance their work against live opponents.
While there are less games considered official preseason contests, the teams still get done what they need to get done to start a regular season. And, history shows that where a team starts a season is often where they complete it.
Only one team in NFL history has won a Super Bowl after losing their opening game at home. That was in 2002, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were beaten in overtime by the New Orleans Saints. But, there was a very good reason for that from a motivational perspective. The Bucs had blown out the Saints the prior December on the same field, 48-21. That kind of prior result can leave a team favored on the point spread, Tampa Bay was favored by six points in their 2002 opener, flat.
In 2004, the NFL initiated a tradition of having the defending Super Bowl Champion host the regular season opener on their home field. This pattern has only been interrupted twice since it was begun. That was in 2013, when the defending champion Baltimore Ravens were forced to open on the road because the Baltimore Orioles of Major League Baseball wouldn’t shift a home regular season game scheduled for the same day as the NFL opener. The Baltimore Ravens and Orioles do not play in the same stadium, but their football and baseball facilities do share the same parking lot.
Forced to open on the road to defend their title, the schedule makers gave the Ravens the worst of all possible matchups, pitting them against the Denver Broncos at Mile High Stadium. The double-digit underdog Ravens had upset Peyton Manning and his Broncos in their 2012 playoff run that concluded with them beating the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII. It was the first Super Bowl San Francisco had ever lost in their sixth trip to the battle for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. In Denver the following September, the Ravens opened the season as blowout victims to Manning and company.
The only other time a defending champion didn’t open the season at home on Thursday night was in 2019. That year, the defending champion was the New England Patriots, who had beaten the Los Angeles Rams for the title the prior February. The NFL decided to celebrate their 100th season with a matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears, two teams with the longest history of NFL play.
In the eighteen games that were played by the defending champions at home, the hosting Super Bowl winners have won 14 of the 18 matchups. The only four losses was first suffered by the 2013 New York Giants, who were beaten by the Dallas Cowboys. In 2016, the defending champion New Patriots were upset at home by the Kansas City Chiefs. The third defending Super Bowl Champion to lose at home in the Thursday night opener was the Los Angeles Rams last season, a team that went on to suffer the worst regular season ever for a defending champion, five wins and a dozen losses.
The fourth team to lose in the traditional home opener was the Kansas City Chiefs this year. They were upset by the Detroit Lions, 21-20.
The only team to lose the Thursday night home opener and go on to play in the Super Bowl in the same season was the Patriots six years ago, and they lost that Roman Numeral contest to the Philadelphia Eagles. The other two defending champions that opened with a loss at home failed to qualify for the playoffs in defense of their Super Bowl title.
What does that tell us?
Home teams defending their Super Bowl title historically do very well in their opener, and now only the Patriots and Chiefs are on a short list of teams that have returned to the Super Bowl after dropping that opening game in front of their home fans.
The Chiefs are looking to take this return to glory one more step than any team has from the list of defending champions that lost their home opener. They are also on the longer list that shows only one of the previous 57 Super Bowl winners won a Super Bowl after opening with a defeat in front of their home fans.
By the way, the 49ers opened on the road this season, and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 30-7.
An edge for Brock Purdy and his San Francisco teammates?
Does it mean anything in regards to Sunday’s Super Bowl result?
It certainly doesn’t throw any negative blanket on the Niners chances.