Football is back! After seven months of offseason workouts, summer doldrums, and training camp, the 2017 NFL season finally kicks off this coming week, starting with the Patriots and Chiefs on Thursday night at Gillette Stadium.
The Globe has a preview section coming out on Thursday, where we’ll detail our picks for the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Today, let’s break down what to expect for both Week 1 and the season, with an assist from NFL communication’s kickoff guide:
Since the NFL began kicking off the season on Thursday night in 2002, the home team is 13-2 (the Giants lost both). Bill Belichick is 15-7 in Week 1, while Andy Reid is 10-8 (with two wins in a row). Washington coach Jay Gruden is 0-3 in Week 1.
The 49ers have the longest Week 1 winning streak, believe it or not, at six games. The poor Browns have lost 12 straight season openers. The Patriots have won eight straight Week 1 home openers.
Over the last 10 years, the Patriots have the best record in the first month of the season (25-8, .758). The Broncos are next (24-10, .706).
Every year since 1990, the NFL has had at least four playoff teams that didn’t reach the postseason the previous year. Last year there were six: Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Oakland, and the Giants.
Since the 1970 merger, only 11 Super Bowl champions have made it back to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks were the last to do it in 2014.
The Jaguars, Lions, Bills, and Browns are still looking for their first division titles since the 2002 realignment. Their searches will almost certainly extend beyond 2017.
Tom Brady enters the season with the best winning percentage among active quarterbacks, including postseason (208-61, .773). Dak Prescott is second (.765) and Russell Wilson is third (.706).
Brady has 183 regular-season wins, three behind Peyton Manning and Brett Favre for the most all time. Brady already has the most total wins (208). Manning had 200.
Brady’s 25 postseason wins not only are the most all time, they’re more than the No. 2 and No. 3 active QBs combined. Ben Roethlisberger has 13 and Joe Flacco has 10. Aaron Rodgers is just 9-7 in the playoffs.
Barring disaster, Drew Brees this year should join Manning and Favre as only QBs with 500 TD passes and 70,000 passing yards. Brady is 44 touchdown passes from 500.
Bill Belichick is seven wins from tying Tom Landry with 270 (regular season and playoffs), third most of all time. Belichick is 13 wins from tying Landry with 250 regular-season wins. George Halas and Don Shula are still out of reach.
The four toughest schedules this year, based on last season’s records, are all in the AFC West: Broncos (.578 win percentage), Chiefs, Chargers, and Raiders. The schedule rotation has the AFC West playing the AFC East and NFC East this season.
The easiest schedules belong to the AFC South. The Colts (.424) have the easiest schedule, followed by the Jaguars and Titans. They play the AFC North and NFC West.
The Patriots have the 12th-toughest schedule (.527). They play seven games against 2016 playoff teams and nine games against teams that were .500 or better last year.
The Patriots will travel 17,830 miles this year, 17th most in the NFL. Playing the Raiders in Mexico City instead of Oakland saves the team 200 miles each way. Last year, the Patriots were 10th with 19,336 miles, and in 2015 they were 15th with 15,568.
The Rams will travel the most this year (32,600 miles), with two games in the Eastern time zone and three games in Central. The Raiders, Cardinals, Dolphins, and Chargers will each “travel around the world’’ once — a 25,000-mile trip.
The Midwest teams have the least amount of travel. The Steelers will travel just 6,694 miles this year, with 13 games in the Eastern and three in the Central time zones. Cincinnati, Green Bay, Detroit, and Chicago round out the bottom five.
It’s easy to forget all of the free agency hubbub from five months ago, so here are some familiar faces in new places: Adrian Peterson is now in New Orleans, Julius Peppers is back in Carolina, Jamaal Charles is with the Broncos, DeSean Jackson is in Tampa Bay, Marshawn Lynch unretired and signed with Oakland, Eric Decker is in Tennessee, and Alshon Jeffery is in Philadelphia.
One man’s picks:
MVP — Wilson. The race will come down to the familiar names — Brady, Rodgers, Matt Ryan, maybe Derek Carr — but we like the Seahawks to continue their dominance in the NFC, and Wilson, at 28, is just entering his prime. Brady will have great numbers, but MVP voters favor fresh faces.
Defensive Player of the Year — Joey Bosa. The Chargers defensive end led the NFL with 17 tackles for loss and added 10½ sacks as a rookie, and he didn’t even participate in camp. He’s in line for a monster season.
Offensive Rookie of the Year — Joe Mixon. We spent some time around Mixon shortly after the draft in May and marveled at his physique — a 6-foot-1-inch, 227-pound man-child with a thick lower frame and tremendous speed. Some analysts considered him the best running back in the draft. The Bengals didn’t take him in the second round to sit him on the bench.
Defensive Rookie of the Year — Reuben Foster. The late first-round pick has had a tremendous camp for the 49ers and looks like the reincarnation of Patrick Willis in the middle of the defense. Should be the next great linebacker from Alabama.
CASHING IN
OTA workouts can be lucrative
A few Patriots-related notes as they pare their roster to 53 and prepare for the Chiefs:
■ Offseason workouts are voluntary, and players are well within their rights to skip them and do their own thing (Alan Branch never shows up, but always is ready to play each fall). That said, the Patriots had good attendance at their organized team activities this spring, especially with their offensive skill players.
Players were paid $215 per OTA, per the collective bargaining agreement, unless their contract specified for a larger workout bonus. The Patriots held 33 OTAs for a maximum payout of $7,095 per player.
Among those who received full workout pay, per NFLPA records: all three quarterbacks (Tom Brady, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Jacoby Brissett), the top four receivers (Julian Edelman, Brandin Cooks, Chris Hogan, and Malcolm Mitchell), three running backs (James White, Dion Lewis, Rex Burkhead), and newcomers Stephon Gilmore and Dwayne Allen.
Branch participated in one OTA, but passed all four of his weigh-ins, earning $400,000. Malcolm Butler participated in 13 OTAs as he squabbled over his contract. Patrick Chung attended 18, Dont’a Hightower 19, Devin McCourty, Danny Amendola, and Mike Gillislee 28, Malcom Brown 29, and Rob Gronkowski 32 of 33. Gronk did enough to earn a $250,000 workout bonus, Edelman also earned a $250,000 bonus, and Amendola earned a $50,000 bonus.
■ In light of Edelman’s injury, a league source said the Patriots and recently retired Anquan Boldin had mutual interest in bringing Boldin to New England this offseason, and he remains intrigued by the possibility. But the point is likely moot. Boldin signed with the Bills, and was placed on Buffalo’s reserve/retired list Aug. 22. That means the Bills retain his rights, and they would need to release him in order to let him sign with the Patriots. That sort of cooperation from a division rival doesn’t seem likely.
■ In Sunday’s Globe, Robert Kraft talked about Butler’s future with the team. “I still hope we get Malcolm done because I love Malcolm,’’ said Kraft, “but we need cooperation from the agent and the player both. I hope that still works out.’’
Here’s a response from Butler’s agent, Derek Simpson:
“Malcolm has great respect for Mr. Kraft, the Patriots coaches, and all his teammates. He loves playing in New England. Malcolm is committed to playing at a high level, and doing anything to help his team win, as he has done since he joined the team. We are always open and available to working with the Patriots to discuss a mutually beneficial agreement.’’
■ Maybe this is why Brady doesn’t want to acknowledge he suffered a concussion last year: According to a press release we received, a company called BrainHQ is expected to announce on Tuesday that Brady “has been getting cognitive conditioning help for the past three-plus years from BrainHQ brain exercises, the brainchild of Dr. Mike Merzenich, world-renowned Kavli laureate in neuroscience.’’
Brady spoke about his cognitive training on the Wednesday before the most recent Super Bowl.
“I’ve used it for probably three years now consistently,’’ he said. “There has been a lot of talk about concussions and head trauma and CTE. I’ve learned that prevention is part of the issue. I work hard to try and prevent some of those things from happening. BrainHQ does a great job of cognitively trying to keep me ahead of any of those problems.’’
HERE WE GO AGAIN
Elliott another mess for league
We’re having a serious case of deja vu. A star player received a suspension he believes is harsh, he hired lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, the NFLPA filed a lawsuit contending that Roger Goodell’s disciplinary hearing was “fundamentally unfair,’’ and the Patriots are the defending Super Bowl champions.
Except it’s not 2015, and the star player isn’t Tom Brady. This time it’s Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, who is fighting his six-game suspension for domestic violence. Kessler and the NFLPA filed their lawsuit before arbitrator Harold Henderson could even render his appeal decision.
It’s another messy situation for the NFL, which can’t seem to help but enter a season with negative publicity and nasty infighting with the union. But here we are again.
Once again, the NFL appears to have shaky evidence. The NFLPA points out that lead investigator Kia Roberts, the only investigator to interview Elliott’s accuser, did not find the accuser to be believable — yet Roberts was not included in Elliott’s June 26 hearing at the league office, and her opinions were not factored when Goodell handed out the ban. Lisa Friel, the league’s special counsel for investigations, recommended that enough evidence existed for Goodell to levy a six-game suspension.
On the surface, it does appear that the NFL had a predetermined conclusion and molded the evidence to reach it. After failing with Ray Rice, and botching the Josh Brown situation last year, the NFL is going to overpunish players accused of domestic violence.
Then again, Goodell has broad powers to discipline players, per Article 46 of the CBA. And those powers were only strengthened by the court battle with Brady.
Elliott may be able to get a court injunction to delay his suspension until the lawsuit is settled, but he has to consider the fact that he may lose and could be forced to serve his suspension later in the season, when the games are more important.
If Henderson bumps the suspension down to three or four games, Elliott may be better off just sucking it up and taking September off.
ETC.
From medical department
In Seattle, six players, including Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, and K.J. Wright, quietly left the team to receive Regenokine, an anti-inflammatory treatment that involves drawing a player’s blood, spinning it through a centrifuge, and injecting it back into the player.
The procedure was originally developed in Germany and is called Orthokine, which has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Regenokine is an adapted version that is legal in the United States. The NFL doesn’t have rules for or against Regenokine.
“Guys are trying to find the cutting edge in technology and essentially whatever it is going to take under the letter of the law in order to keep yourself as fresh as possible so you can play and be productive as possible,’’ Seahawks defensive end Kris Richard told reporters last week.
It is unclear where the players received the treatments, but we can’t help but think what the national hysteria would be if it were Patriots seeking them.
And in New Orleans, the Saints abruptly fired their orthopedic surgeons, Deryk Jones and Misty Suri, after missing a stress fracture with cornerback Delvin Breaux’s fibula. This left the Saints without orthopedists for their joint practices with the Chargers, and for the rest of the preseason, a highly unusual circumstance.
There has to be more to this story. Teams often change their doctors, but not at this point in the season. Not to mention, it is apparently common for doctors to miss tiny stress fractures on initial X-rays.
Firing the doctors in such a public fashion also had the potential to torpedo their careers, forcing their employers to support them publicly.
“Our medical experts have stated that it is not uncommon for stress-related fractures to be unnoticeable in initial imaging; follow-up diagnostics are always required when a patient doesn’t show appropriate clinical progress,’’ Ochsner CEO Warner Thomas said in a statement. “After a very careful and thorough review, we want the record to be clear, Drs. Jones and Suri did not ‘misdiagnose’ an injury.’’
Extra points
The NFL won’t hand out its Walter Payton Man of the Year Award until February, but J.J. Watt should just about have it wrapped up with his incredible fund-raising effort to help Houston recover from Hurricane Harvey. As of Friday, Watt had helped raise more than $15 million for disaster relief, and growing. Just an awesome job by Watt to harness the power of his celebrity to help out his community . . . The Ravens extended John Harbaugh’s contract through the 2019 season, but are they really committing to him long term? Only adding one year does little except prevent Harbaugh from having a lame-duck season in 2018. And Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti fired Brian Billick after the 2007 season, nine months after he signed an extension that had three years left on it.
Matthew Stafford signed a six-year, $151.5 million contract last week, but NFL reporters need to stop fixating on calling each new contract “record breaking,’’ as we usually do. What’s important is not whether a contract breaks records, but how well a player used the leverage he had. And believe it or not, Stafford could have squeezed the Lions for even more, had he gone year to year with franchise tags. This deal is actually a decent compromise, given Stafford’s strong bargaining position . . . The Jets and Bills are rebuilding. The Browns and Colts are rebuilding. The Jaguars, 49ers, Rams, and Bears are all rebuilding. It sure seems like a quarter of the league, and half of the AFC East, is conceding the present and building with the hope that Tom Brady will one day retire. Good luck.
Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.
