I’ve seen this before.
Okay, since I handicapped the National Football League as a kid in grade-school in the 1960’s, went to work for the Oakland Raiders in 1973, and opened Qoxhi Picks in 1981, of course I’ve seen a lot. And, more often than not, game matchups or season records have parallel situations in history.
It was 1999, the St. Louis Rams starting quarterback, Trent Green, was injured during the preseason and head coach Dick Vermeil was forced to start an unproven signal caller that had recently been stocking shelves at a grocery store.
Not exactly a formula for success.
But it was.
That quarterback is now in the Hall of Fame, in great part to the role Kurt Warner played that season when he led the Rams on a scoring surge that took St. Louis all the way to a victory in Super Bowl XXXIV. In all our years of handicapping NFL teams that Rams squad from 1999 ranks as the best offensive team of all time.