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Week two is coming up, half the teams are undefeated, half the teams are winless. And already pundits are breaking out some obscure stats about how a team's week one performance effectively sets the tone for the rest of the season. Here's my favorite stat nugget about opening weekend: the 47 Super Bowl winners have a 38-8-1 record in the kickoff weekend games of their title seasons. Now how about that! Should the winless teams declare the season over already?
And there's more: Since the move to a 16-game schedule in 1978 (and excluding the abbreviated 1982 season), of the 506 teams that won their openers, 266 made the playoffs. Of the 507 losing teams, only 120 made the playoffs. Note: There are a different number of winning and losing teams in season opening games due to the fact the NFL had 31 teams in each season from 1999 to 2001, which creates an odd number for the total number of results.
But don't give up if your team lost its season opener: Since realignment in 2002, 79 of the 132 playoff teams (60 percent) began the year at either 1-1 or 0-2. But the chances of an 0-2 team making the playoffs are decidedly slim. Since 1990, 190 teams started 0-2. Only 22 of those teams made the playoffs (12 percent).
I swear, people come up with the strangest stats.
With all of that out of the way, and the importance of a good start established, we take a stab at predicting this weekend's game outcomes. Oh, and a little shocker right up front: this week we're taking the Cowboys unanimously.
Below are our Week 2, 2013 picks. Agree, Disagree? Let us know about it in the comments section.
