It may boil down to one of those oddball statistical flukes that sports devotees cling to as a higher sign — like how the team who wins the media week Madden contest always wins the title — but for the first 27 years of the Super Bowl era in the NFL, there was no game more important than the opening game. No team that lost their opener ever went on to win the Super Bowl, a fact that would stay true until the 1993-94 season, when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Buffalo Bills 30-13 in a season that began with an Emmitt Smith hold-out and a season opening loss to the Redskins. This was not the first time the hated Cowboys destroyed one of the universal harmonies of the National Football League, nor would it be the last. But while the old mystique of opening day may be diminished, there was nothing but happy fans in Washington Sunday, as the Redskins put away the Chicago Bears, 9-7.

The game was billed as a match between two teams with top-tier defenses and anemic offenses, and it played out just as the prognosticators drew it up. Both teams had tremendous trouble running the ball early, and the Bears spent the first half struggling to get so much as a first down. Gregg Williams’ charges, despite the off-season personnel losses, haven’t lost a step since week seventeen a year ago. Bears’ RBs Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson were held to 41 yards on 18 carries, and while rookie quarterback Kyle Orton played with real poise—and from time to time received stellar pass protection—he committed two critical turnovers and was never able to string enough big passing plays together to mount a serious drive. The only score the Redskins gave up came after Skins returner Antonio Brown fumbled the opening kick of the second half and gave the Bears the spot at the 23 yard line.