TODAY’S SPORTSTAT — Winning season opener has been important for Super Bowl-bound teams

By JERRY TAPP

The 2018 NFL is one week old. Some team fan bases are excited about the rest of the season while a handful of other faithful are wondering how bad of a season their team will endure.

How important is the first game of the year … specifically, how important is winning Game One in the NFL season to a potential trip to the Super Bowl? Here are 10 stats about winning the first regular season game of the year and how it relates to a spot in the Super Bowl that year.

1. Of the 104 teams that have played in the 52 Super Bowls, 86 of them (83.7%) won their first game of that season. Sixteen lost their first game, and two teams had their first contest of the season end in a tie.
2. One Super Bowl team lost their first game of that year in overtime: Tampa Bay in 2002 lost 26-20 to New Orleans in OT.
3. In 2017, the two Super Bowl opponents, New England and Philadelphia, had different results in their first games of the ’17 campaign: Philly beat Washington 30-17 in Week One while the Pats were a 42-27 loser to Kansas City.
4. Green Bay has played in five Super Bowls. In those five appearances, the Pack won their first game of the season four times (1966, 1996, 1997, and 2010) and had a tie game in their first game of the season in 1967.
5. The Super Bowl team with the biggest Week One loss was the Patriots. In 2003, the Pats lost Game One 31-0 to Buffalo, yet they made it to the Super Bowl that season. Eight Super Bowl teams lost their first game of that season by 10 points or more.
6. Speaking of New England, they have made 10 trips to the Super Bowl. They are 5-5 in Game One in those seasons.
7. Seven Super Bowl teams shut out their opponents in Game One of that season.
8. In the last 10 seasons, the 20 Super Bowl teams went 16-4 in their first game of the regular season.
9. Five teams that won their first game of the season with an overtime victory went on to play in the Super Bowl that season.
10. The biggest Week One win by a team that went on to play in the Super Bowl was the Oakland Raiders who won their first game of the 1967 season 51-0. The 1991 Washington Redskins won their first game that year 45-0 over Detroit on their way to a Super Bowl visit.

Follow Jerry on Twitter @StatsonTapp