Early Adjustments | S.S. Mailbag

Before I get to today’s intro topic, I wanted to look back at another one I wrote for a mailbag in May, shortly after the NFL dropped its 2022 schedule. The most notable thing about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers schedule was that the first four games looked like a real gauntlet of difficult opponents. That include the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs in back-to-back games at Raymond James Stadium. But before the Bucs even got to that they would have two travel to Dallas and New Orleans in Weeks One and Two. The Cowboys went 12-5 last year and the Saints had beaten Tampa Bay in seven straight regular-season games, including the last three in the Superdome.

This would be just the seventh time in 47 seasons that the Buccaneers would open a season with two straight road games. Back in May, I suggested that we look at this as an opportunity. In none of those other six seasons did the Buccaneers emerge from those two season-opening road games with a 2-0 road record. How great would that set the team up for the rest of the season, especially after this grueling first month is over.

And now the Buccaneers have done it! Rousing wins in Dallas and New Orleans have put the Bucs in an enviable position as the only team in the league that already has two road wins in the bank. So I thought it was worth resurfacing what I had learned about such starts across the league. The Bucs had never done it before, but it had been done before, though not terribly often. Here’s what I wrote in May.

“So the Buccaneers have never done it before, but just how common are such starts? Well, since the 1970 merger, it has happened less than once per season. In those 52 campaigns, 42 teams have managed the 2-0 road start to a season, most recently both Denver and San Francisco last year. It’s actually happened six times over the last four seasons, but before that it had only occurred six times in the previous 16 years.

Those 42 teams finished their seasons with a combined winning percentage of .594, which when applied to a 17-game season would be almost exactly a 10-7 season. Last year, every team that won at least 10 games made the playoffs, including the aforementioned 49ers, who went all the way to the NFC Championship Game. On the other hand, the aforementioned 2021 Broncos did not win 10 games or make the playoffs, finishing 7-10. It’s probably worth noting that not all 2-0 road starts in the first two weeks of a season are created equal. Denver opened last year with wins at the…