Your team spit the bit in Week 1 and you’re freaking out. Or maybe your team surprised you and gave you hope that it won’t be a woeful laughingstock for a change.

Sometimes it is easy to recognize what is real and what is not real at the start of the NFL season.

Sometimes it isn’t. Remember the 2007 Giants? Started 0-2. Won Super Bowl 42. Remember the 1986 Giants? Lost 31-28 to the Cowboys. Won Super Bowl 21. Remember the 2001 Patriots? Started 0-2 before Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl.

“The NFL sells hope every offseason,” longtime legendary NFL columnist and chronicler Peter King told Serby Says, “and everybody buys hope every offseason.”