But teams are different. The league changes year to year. So which pattern should the Atlanta Falcons look for this year?
Well, there are a couple.
For starters, Matt Ryan has never started a season 0-2. Pretty impressive. Look at last year. Atlanta dropped a questionable game on the road to start the season against the Eagles, the team they’ll face next week, and lost a couple of key players in the process. They responded with a divisional win at home against Carolina.
In fact, you have to go back to 2007 to find the last time the Falcons dropped two consecutive games to open the season.