The National Football League will stage ten preseason games today and complete the second full week of their summer games tomorrow when the Tennessee Titans host the Seattle Seahawks.
The games today start early, 9:00 a.m. Pacific time, with the Detroit Lions hosting the Washington Commanders. Last season, neither of these teams advanced to the playoffs but they met two years ago after the Lions had captured the top seed in the National Football Conference with a 15-2 campaign. The top seed did Detroit little good, as the Wild Card Commanders upset the Lions before losing the NFC Championship Game to the eventual Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles.
The Lions, after years of cellar dwelling performances, had a dramatic improvement with the arrival of head coach Dan Campbell. He not only led the Lions to the top seed in 2024; he also had them in the playoffs and were leading the San Francisco 49ers on the road the prior season in the NFC Championship Game.
The Commanders also had a dramatic turnaround in 2024, leaping from last place the prior year to the playoffs and NFC Championship Game. Their turnaround was engineered by head coach Dan Quinn.
Al Davis, the onetime owner of the Oakland Raiders, said, “It is more difficult to maintain success than it is to first achieve it.”
His statement has merit because when a team rises from last place to the playoffs they are pushing against the motivation of prior defeats. That can be a motivational boost, while once at the top the challenge is to keep the edge that got a team there without the natural motivation gained from a need to overcome.