Week 1 Always Intriguing for Eventual and Defending Super Bowl Champions

It begins on a Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys on September 9. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will attempt to become the first team since the 2003 and ‘04 New England Patriots to repeat as Super Bowl champions. Of course, that team had quarterback Tom Brady at the helm, and wouldn’t you know it, so does Bruce Arians’ current squad.

There’s a long way to go between now and the start of NFL 2021. But for a little reference, it is worth noting that the defending Super Bowl champion owns a combined 37-16-1 win-loss record in its first game of the following season. The last reigning NFL titleholder to lose its season debut the next year were the 2017 Patriots, again led by the league’s all-time leader in passing touchdowns.

The opening game of the season has had its ups and downs in regards to Brady. The seven-time Super Bowl winner and the team he’s played for has certainly stumbled out of the gate on a few occasions. But that doesn’t mean that he and the club were on the way to a doomed campaign. In fact, quite the contrary (with the exception of 2008, when a knee injury shelved the dynamic performer for the remainder of the year).

As the Bucs await the start of 2021, it’s also worth noting that the eventual Super Bowl champion is 44-10-1 in season openers. Way back when, the 1967 Green Bay Packers tied their first game of the season, and went on to win Super Bowl II. As for the 10 losses, four of them involve Brady or the team he was playing for.

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The 2001 Patriots dropped their first two contests. In that second tilt, quarterback Drew Bledsoe (the Week 1 starter) was injured vs. the Jets and it paved the way for Brady. New England would stun the Rams, 20-17, in Super Bowl XXXVI.

Two years later, Bill Belichick’s somewhat-distracted club shuffled off to Buffalo and were rolled by a 31-0 count. When it was all said and done, the Patriots came away with a 32-29 victory over the Panthers in Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The 2014 Pats fell at Miami in Week 1 and by year’s end, orchestrated a fourth-quarter comeback in dethroning the champion Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX. And this past year, the Buccaneers went to the Superdome and fell to the Saints on the opening Sunday. They would return there for a playoff matchup on the way to capturing Super Bowl LV and unseating the champion Chiefs.

It’s far too early for any kind of game predictions. But the season’s first game during the second Thursday of September should but may not provide us with some insight when it comes to crowning a champion.