The new NFL season kicks off tonight, Saturday, Sept. 2, 1978, with the New York Giants playing the Buccaneers in Tampa, Florida. However, that game will not be on TV; instead, Channel 3 is showing this:
1978 me is about as excited as I can possibly be to put the game on and then splay out my football cards on the living-room floor and get them all sorted out for the new season. Here's how I project things to go, by the way:
This, of course, would be a crushing result for us Miami Dolphins fans, but the numbers of my super-secret rating system are what the numbers of my super-secret rating system are. And the numbers are significantly worse for the Dolphins after A.J. Duhe was sidelined by injury early and Bob Griese late during the preseason.
The NFL slimmed from six to four exhibition games this summer, but injuries have remained a huge part of the story of the leadup to the regular season. In addition to Miami defensive end Duhe and quarterback Griese, injuries apparently have shelved for one or multiple weeks of the regular season Baltimore Colts quarterback Bert Jones, New England Patriots wide receiver Darryl Stingley, Cincinnati Bengals qurterback Ken Anderson, Giants defensive lineman Troy Archer and Chicago Bears cornerback Allan Ellis. These players projected among the league's very best players at their positions. How quickly they return to action and which others are sidelined when will have giant influence on how things actually go on the field, and neither of those influences is factored into my predictions.
Nor, really, is the possible impact of rookies. Houston Oilers running back Earl Campbell looks amazing. New Orleans Saints wide receiver Wes Chandler, San Diego Chargers wide receiver John Jefferson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Doug Williams, Denver Broncos nose tackle Don Latimer and Dallas Cowboys tight end/fullback Todd Christensen also have looked great. Kansas City Chiefs defensive linemen Art Still and Sylvester Hicks, San Francisco 49ers tight end Ken MacAfee, Cincinnati defensive end Ross Browner, Detroit Lions safety Luther Bradley, Atlanta Falcons tackle Mike Kenn, Green Bay Packers linebacker John Anderson and Los Angeles Rams kicker Frank Corral appear as though have wide-open immediate opportunities to contribute to their team's fortunes in big ways.
And then there's coaching. I came up with my super-secret rating system only last season, and I haven't quite figured out how to suss out the specific impact of coaching. Of course, it is tremendous. The Dolphins (10-4), Cleveland Browns (6-8), Broncos (12-2), Washington (9-5) and Falcons (7-7) all fared significantly better than I projected them to in NFL77, and I can't help but believe that head coaches Don Shula, Forrest Gregg, Red Miller, George Allen and Leeman Bennett (of Paducah!) were the primary reasons why.
Better projecting the likely impact of rookies and measuring that of head coaches are this season's major points of emphasis in refining my super-secret rating system.
Interestingly, neither Gregg nor Allen is back with the team he coached in NFL77, and now neither is employed by any team as NFL78 dawns. Gregg took an assistant-coaching job with the Chargers but then decided his heart wasn't in it. Allen was hired away from Washington by the Rams, but then Carroll Rosenbloom decided his head hadn't been in it. "I made a serious error in judgment," he was quoted as saying after Los Angeles's 0-2 start in the preseason. He fired Allen and promoted assistant coach Ray Malavasi to guide the Rams.
But Shula is back in Miami, which gives me hope that the Dolphins will outperform my expectations. And Bennett is back in Atlanta, which I bet keeps the sports desks at The Paducah Sun (no longer the Sun-Democrat) and Channel 6 dialed in all autumn. And Miller is back with Denver, which I think is going to win the whole thing.
For most of the preseason, my super-secret rating system actually had the Broncos going undefeated in NFL78. But then the Oakland Raiders picked up one of the league's top defensive players, cornerback Monte Jackson, from the Rams, and, in perhaps the only moment in my entire actual life that I was happy about the good fortune of the Raiders, that acquisition tipped Week 14 Broncos-at-Raiders in favor of the home team. ("Phew!" 2025 and 1978 me simultaneously exclaimed in honor of the 1972 Dolphins.)
Thank you, Matthew, for inspiring me to work through this fun project over the last several weeks, and thank you, GoHeath, for sustaining my enthusiasm throughout the period. Let's go NFL of every year, indeed!
