Curtain rises on opener

BUFFALO – And so it begins.

Let this not be the day when it all comes to an end.

For fans in almost every NFL city, today marks the day when life begins in ecstasy … or agony. Thirteen of the teams that open play today will have the unbridled optimism of the unbeaten, while the other 13 may well feel like the sky is falling.

“The fact of the matter is, after the first week, half of the teams in the league will have lost,” Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. “Do they take their ball and go home? No. It happens.”

While the first game of the season doesn’t necessarily dictate the weeks to come – four of the last seven Super Bowl champs lost their opener, and the 2005 Seahawks suffered a Week 1 loss in their most historic season – the importance of getting off on the right foot is not lost on the players.

“If you’re playing in this sport or competing in anything, you don’t want to start off losing,” Seahawks safety Deon Grant said. “It’s the most important game because it’s the first game. But next week, the second game will be the most important game because it’s the next one. … It’s definitely important for us to come out and get a win.”

The Seahawks will face the Buffalo Bills today in a battle of optimistic teams. One of them will spend the next week feeling as if eight months of work have paid off, while the other will go back to the drawing board.

What players and coaches have to keep in mind is that today’s game, no matter how it looks one way or the other, is only the beginning.

“It’s a long season,” said Walter Jones, the Seahawks’ Pro Bowl left tackle. “One game isn’t going to decide the season.”

For proof, Jones can take a few lessons from his past. The Seahawks’ 1999 team started with a thud when the Detroit Lions spoiled Holmgren’s debut with a 28-20 win at the Kingdome. That Seattle team bounced back by winning eight of its next nine games on the way to the franchise’s first playoff appearance in 12 years.

Then there was 2005, which saw the Seahawks open with a 26-14 loss at Jacksonville but finished with a franchise-record 13 regular-season victories and a first trip to the Super Bowl.

So losing the first game of the season is certainly not the beginning of the end.

“We have 16 games,” Grant said. “You can count on your hand how many teams went undefeated the whole year. This game will be a real test, and hopefully we can have a great start to the season. But you can’t come away discouraged if we do come away with a loss.”

Today’s game against Buffalo has added pressure in that the Seahawks have struggled in road games over the years. The defense, in particular, was a shell of itself in road games last season. Holmgren said that coaches spent most of the off-season identifying the reason for that, and they believe they have found the source.

“What we found was that, on the road when we got shocked, it took us a while to recover,” he said.

Holmgren has also altered the road-trip schedule a bit, giving the players a later curfew on Friday nights.