A couple weeks ago, after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants before heading into their bye week, I figured they were in for a couple tough games coming off their open date with meetings in Green Bay and against the Detroit Lions.
I also thought the Packers would beat them at Lambeau Field and that would make it tougher on the Lions to tag the defending Super Bowl Champions with a second straight loss. As it turned out, the Lions didn’t have to beat the Eagles and pin them with consecutive losses, and after the Eagles beat the Packers on the road they got by the Lions at home.
Okay.
In my years of working in professional football I have taken some lessons that pay dividends year-after-year. One of them I learned while working my first season with the Oakland Raiders. That year, the Raiders opened their 1973 season with a road game against the Minnesota Vikings. That game was followed by a home meeting with the defending Super Bowl Champion Miami Dolphins and a third week contest in Kansas City against the Chiefs.
The Vikings, one of the best teams in football at the time, beat us on opening day. The next week, we ended the Dolphins record 18 straight wins with a narrow 12-7 victory. The Dolphins first loss since 1971. On the Thursday before we left for our game against the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, I was at my workstation in the Raiders locker room and offensive backfield coach Paul Roach said to me and Tom Flores, “Well before the season started I would have taken two wins in the first three weeks.”
I viewed the comment as the kiss of death.