When the Cleveland Browns, the Tennessee Titans and the Atlanta Falcons opened the new NFL season 0-1 last week, it wasn’t a surprise.Each is considered far likelier to contend for the league’s worst record than a playoff berth.
Yet entering the season’s second week, it might be time for some other members of the 0-1 club to be feeling panic.The so-far winless Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Denver Broncos all entered the season with justified playoff ambitions — plans that would be further jeopardized by starting 0-2.
Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, only 11% of 0-2 teams have gone on to make the postseason.The expansion of the playoff format to 14 teams in 2020 has made rebounding slightly easier; since then, 16% of 0-2 teams have gone on to make the postseason, including three each of the last two seasons.
But a stumble to open September whittles away a team’s margin for error.Baltimore missed last season’s playoffs when its field goal missed in the season finale, circumstances that might have been avoided had the Ravens not started 1-5.
Kansas City stumbled to an 0-2 start last season and spent the next two months digging itself out of that hole before it missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade.Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams in Chicago, earlier this year.
The Rams are one of five teams this season — joining the Broncos, Packers, Commanders and Cowboys — that already have one division loss.Patrick McDermott / Getty Images file“My message is just echoing ‘don’t change, don’t flinch, don’t blink,’” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said.
“This is a long year.We have to stick together.”Two seasons ago, the Rams were one of three teams that started 0-2 and still made the playoffs.
But as the Rams, the preseason Super Bowl favorite, prepare to face the Giants (1-0) on Monday, they have already lost more than their first game....