Despite the fact it possesses a mere 16 games, an NFL season has so many moving parts -- a bye week, injuries, inconsistency brought on by the parity-ridden nature of the league -- it's basic human nature to think results posted in Labor Day's shadow would be irrelevant by Christmas.
History paints quite a different picture.
Since 1978, when the league expanded to a 16-game regular-season schedule, 288 teams that won their Week One games went on to reach the postseason, with 173 of those squads taking division titles.
But only 134 of the teams that started 0-1 ended up playing January football, with a mere 77 of them finishing first.
