For many of my followers this is old news, but it still stands as the most important time in my life when my handicapping shifted from strictly X’s and O’s to the motivation driving the offenses and defenses.

My Dad and I used to pick the games each week while reviewing the numbers in the Sporting Green on Saturday morning. In 1965, while I was a sophomore in high school, on one of those Saturday mornings we got to a game involving the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Colts. Dad quickly picked the Vikings while saying, “They will have no trouble with Johnny Unitas out with an injury.”

I agreed.

But while watching the 49ers and Lions on television the next day with my Dad in his den the scores kept coming in from Minnesota and the Colts were trouncing the Fran Tarkenton led Vikings.

“Maybe this Gary Cuozzo is something special,” Dad said while mispronouncing the Colts quarterback’s name as the final score flashed on the TV: Baltimore 41, Minnesota 21. Once the final score was posted Dad said, “They must have had a great game plan to win on the road with Unitas out.” Dad was a coach, and a coach always thinks it is the game plan that dictates the results.

I thought differently. While my fellow classmates studied whatever was on our high school curriculum that week, I spent my time in the library going through old newspapers to find games in which a team's star starting quarterback was out with an injury and how his team fared without him. Turns out they won more often than they lost with the backup and that wasn’t even factoring in the point spreads which I’m certain had them decided underdogs most times, just as the Colts were on that November afternoon in Minnesota.

From that early work I developed charts tracking when a team did particularly well, and when they fell flat. While it started with the injured quarterback situation, in the years that followed I discovered a number of common factors that lent to a team performing above or below their accepted talent level.

Then, in 1973, I went to work for the Oakland Raiders and had another inside slice of the motivational factors that dictate performance. In all my years with the Raiders we were a top team in the playoffs and finally won a Super Bowl to complete the 1976 season. I saw the preparation for big games and how when we were playing what on paper was a severely weaker squad our week of work leading up to kickoff was not as focused.

John Madden couldn’t talk the team into preparing for the New Orleans Saints with the same intensity that we naturally generated when the Pittsburgh Steelers were next on our schedule. John would often say that fear of losing is the greatest motivator, and he was right, but you can’t make up fear. It comes from when you truly are challenged, and defeat is a real possibility.

Many of the top handicappers I know had the Green Bay Packers tabbed this year as a potential Super Bowl winner. Their strong finish and showing in the playoffs last season were indicators they were primed for big things this year. Add to that equation the emergence of Jordan Love as a topflight quarterback and you have the makings of something special for the fans that wear cheeseheads to their games.

Then, in the closing moments of the Packers game last Friday night in Brazil, Love was injured while making a desperation pass. Green Bay fans held a collective breath as he lay on the field. The medical diagnosis the next day didn’t reveal the worst fears, but the MCL sprain will sideline their star quarterback for at least the next three or four weeks.

So, now what?

A team many thought capable of winning the Super Bowl were installed by the books as a 2½ point underdog for their season opener at Lambeau Field against the Indianapolis Colts. The betting public, wise to the Love injury, has driven the point spread higher.

If you’re paying attention, you know where I’m going with this.

Qoxhi Picks: Green Bay Packers (+3) over Indianapolis Colts