“You can’t afford that in this league”: Panic index of all NFL teams with 0-2 record

Playoff chances in the NFL: After 0-2 there is still hope – after 0-3 there is no more

After two of 17 weeks of play, exactly nine teams have a perfect 2-0 record, and nine other franchises are still waiting for their first win. We’ll be looking at the high-flyers over the course of the week, but this time we’ll focus on the winless teams. And the first question here was inevitably: Can we write off the playoffs after two defeats at the start?

The answer: Not quite. Since 2021, there have been 17 season games, and in these three years a total of 21 teams started 0-2. Two of them reached the playoffs, including the Houston Texans last year. If you expand the sample size further and look back to 1990 – when the playoff format with twelve places was introduced – the chances of making the postseason after a 0-2 start are just over ten percent. Statistically speaking, only one of the nine false starters is likely to make it to the playoffs.

Whoever loses next weekend can already plan for 2025: Since 2002, 103 teams have started their season with three losses, and only one has been able to turn that around (the Texans in 2018). Week 3 is also the proverbial “must-win game.”

At the same time, 0-2 is not always 0-2. Therefore, instead of the usual winners and losers from the weekend, we are analyzing the situations of the nine 0-2 teams and awarding them a possible point on the “Panic Index” of one (= “Everything will be OK again”) to ten (= “The season can be written off!”).