Which 0-2 Team Will Make The Playoffs?

With only 17 games in a season, the stakes are high every single week in the NFL. In fact, Week 2 is practically an elimination week for the 16 teams that already put one loss in the L column. Historically, teams that start 0-2 have only about a 10 percent chance of making the playoffs. 

Last year, the Bengals shook off an 0-2 start to make it all the way to the AFC title game and broke a three-year drought for 0-2 teams. Before that, 2018 had been the last time an 0-2 team made the postseason, even after the NFL expanded the playoff field to 14 teams in 2020. Cincinnati became the first and only team so far in the expanded postseason era to bounce back from an 0-2 start. 

That’s bad news for the nine teams who are 0-2 right now. The silver lining is that a 10 percent chance isn’t zero, and statistically speaking we should see at least one of these teams rebound and end up in the playoffs come January. Here they are, ordered from least likely to most likely: 

Arizona Cardinals

Everyone expected this team to be 0-2 but not many people expected them to look as spunky as they have. Arizona has held leads in both games, including a 20-point halftime lead against the Giants before New York came storming back to avoid a nightmare start and a blurb in this column. 

It does seem like teams are taking the Cardinals for granted and getting caught off guard early before the talent disparity eventually becomes too much for Arizona to overcome. Cardinals HC Jonathan Gannon deserves some credit for how hard his players are playing, too. 

While Arizona remains one of the worst teams in football, they are playing too hard not to fall into a couple of wins as the season progresses. The X-factor will be when the team gets back QB Kyler Murray — and I am consciously using “when” and not “if” here — perhaps around midseason. Murray’s talent will be a difference-maker in some of the close-margin games, even if Arizona will have games in the future where they’re blown out.  

Houston Texans

No one really expected the Texans to be relevant in 2023 as the rebuild continues with a highly-picked rookie quarterback in C.J. Stroud and a first-year head coach in DeMeco Ryans. But a lot of analysts thought Houston would take a clear step forward and easily beat the sportsbooks’ projections, most of whom had Houston as the clear second-worst team in the league with a win total around four or five. 

The Texans haven’t done that so far. They were outclassed by the Ravens in Week 1, which is fine. Baltimore is one of the best organizations in football and has a strong squad this year. But in Week 2 the Texans were blown out by a Colts team that is supposed to be in the same tier as them (rookie quarterback, first-year head coach, rebuilding). Injuries on the offensive line have sapped what a lot of people thought would be a clear strength for the Texans and the defense remains a work in progress. 

The bright side is Stroud has played reasonably well in his first two games, showing off the same strengths of his game that were there at Ohio State like high-level accuracy. There’s still plenty of ball left to play and it stands to reason a team as young as the Texans will be playing better in November and December than they are right now. Time should also help them get healthier on the offensive line which will allow them to establish more of an identity on offense. 

For now, though, the Cardinals have to be jazzed that they own Houston’s first-round pick in 2024. 

Chicago Bears

Things are not going well in Chicago right now. The Bears had high hopes for a big leap forward after spending the offseason retooling a roster that earned the No. 1 pick. They expected the upgrade in talent would help spark a big leap from QB Justin Fields, and they bet big on Fields by trading the No. 1 pick for a package that included WR D.J. Moore. It’s a formula that has engineered big seasons for other teams with young, developing quarterbacks. 

Instead, the Bears were crushed by their longtime arch-rivals, the Packers, in Week 1, in a game that seemed to be unusually demoralizing for a team with so much still in front of them. That trickled into Week 2 when Chicago was taken down by the upstart Buccaneers, 27-17. 

There is a lot going wrong and fair or unfair it starts with Fields. He looks like the same quarterback he was in 2022. He’s still holding the ball too long and not seeing the field well at times. Field has taken 10 sacks in two games and he should share a significant amount of the blame for that number, not necessarily his offensive line. 

But the same challenges that were around him in 2022 are still present in a major way this season. We can start with the supporting cast. Moore went over 100 yards in Week 2 but was inexplicably held to just two catches in Week 1. Darnell Mooney has been banged up and Chase Claypool — who GM Ryan Poles traded the No. 32 overall pick for at last year’s trade deadline — put up such a pathetic effort in Week 1 that he was called out on the sidelines for it and had to apologize to the team. The talent upgrades haven’t really shown up on defense either. 

So far coaching has been iffy, too. Ultimately Fields is going to have to become a more balanced player and a more refined passer to have long-term success. But in the meantime, the coaching on offense is not taking advantage of his unique athletic gifts enough, similar to last year when OC Luke Getsy had to alter his approach after a few games. It’s fair to question the play-calling, too, after Chicago went to the well too many times on screen passes and the last one resulted in a game-clinching pick-six. 

If there were any outside hopes of stealing the NFC North, those are a distant memory for now. The Bears have to learn to walk before they can think about running. Figuring out how to get Fields in a rhythm and help him take a step forward should be the top priority because having to start over with another rookie quarterback would be a major setback. 

Carolina Panthers

My prediction of the Panthers winning the NFC South has not aged well. The Falcons, Saints and even the Buccaneers are all 2-0. Carolina has dropped games to Atlanta and New Orleans to open the season and frankly looked a few steps behind both squads. I always thought the Panthers would be a better second half of the season team but they made their lives difficult for down the road with this cold of a start. 

Once again, the defense looks like a solid unit. Carolina has flummoxed both quarterbacks they’ve faced and largely shut down the passing attacks for the Falcons and Saints outside of some great individual efforts. If there’s a weakness, it’s against the run, as both Atlanta and New Orleans were able to get things moving by going straight at Carolina’s defense. Losing LB Shaq Thompson for the year is not going to help the run defense but there are enough pieces on this side of the ball to continue to have success. 

What the defense really needs is for the offense to start pulling its weight and take some pressure off, ideally putting opponents in more situations where they can’t just spam the running game. Right now it’s been rough on that side of the ball. First-round QB Bryce Young has made his share of rookie mistakes with two bad interceptions in Week 1 and another learning moment on a sack-fumble in the red zone in Week 2. 

Some of that is to be expected as a natural part of the transition to the NFL. But I don’t know if Carolina expected to struggle as much around Young as they have for two games. The Panthers had to trade Moore to get high enough in the draft to pick Young and already dealt away RB Christian McCaffrey last season. They tried to band-aid the skill group by signing RB Miles Sanders, WR Adam Thielen, TE Hayden Hurst and WR DJ Chark, adding WR Jonathan Mingo in the second round to hopefully grow with Young. 

The problem is there’s not a single player in this group who the team can count on to consistently win matchups or create separation. Maybe Chark can be that guy but he missed Week 1 with a hamstring injury and had just one target in Week 2. Young has had to be perfect with his accuracy and reads to have a chance at making a play and that’s just not realistic to expect from him right now. Injuries at guard have hampered Carolina’s efforts to lean on the run game, and Sanders has looked more like an ordinary back without the benefit of a dominant offensive line like he did with the Eagles last year. 

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that HC Frank Reich coaches his best in all the other months not named September. Young should get better, and the offense might be able to figure out an identity as the season goes along. If the defense holds up — and attrition has already taken a bite out of this unit with the loss of Thompson for the season and CB Jaycee Horn to a significant hamstring injury — Carolina could keep itself in striking distance for the last wildcard spot or even the NFC South if the rest of the division falters. 

That would be a best-case scenario, though. Realistically, Panthers fans should just be hoping for some positive momentum and a strong offseason in 2024 to build around Young. 

Denver Broncos

For as awful as the 2022 season was for the Broncos under former HC Nathaniel Hackett, Denver still started the season 2-1. The team has looked better in 2023 under new HC Sean Payton, yet through two weeks the Broncos are 0-2. 

Why? 

In Week 1, two missed kicks by Wil Lutz that cost Denver four points loomed large in a one-point loss in which each team got only six possessions. The offense started strong with two touchdown passes from QB Russell Wilson in the first half but couldn’t maintain its efficiency in the second half while the defense couldn’t get the Raiders off the field. 

In Week 2, the Broncos roared out of the gates with some vintage Wilson moonballs and built a 21-3 lead. Then Wilson fumbled late in the second quarter and you could see all the air deflate out of the Broncos. Washington scored twice before the half to make it 21-14 at the break, then kept pressing. They looked more physical and more confident for most of the second half while the Broncos offense and Wilson fell into a lull that looked a lot like the 2022 squad. Denver still had a shot to win with an improbable Hail Mary from Wilson and what could have been called pass interference on the game-tying two-point conversion, but after giving up that kind of halftime lead, they deserved to lose. 

There are no shortage of problems in Denver through two weeks but if you had to sum it up, it looks like the Broncos are still trying to figure out how to win games. Payton has talked about how it will take time to unlearn the scars from last year’s team and change the culture. Getting a team that’s more mentally tough and commits fewer penalties (tied for a league-leading 19 right now) will take some time. 

The challenge is Payton is not a patient person and Denver just squandered two of their better chances at getting a win if you look at their schedule. The Dolphins are up next and Miami has looked like one of the best teams in the AFC. There’s a winnable game against the Bears, a stiff test against a feisty Jets defense, and two games against the Chiefs sandwiching a matchup versus the Packers. 

A 4-4 record at the bye would be an accomplishment against this slate, and that still leaves the Broncos as just an average team. That’s not Payton’s standard, and it begs the question of what kind of changes the Broncos will be considering next offseason to change that. 

This is where we have to talk more about Wilson. Payton has done a good job of playing to Wilson’s strengths, better than the coaching staff last year. Wilson has also been more willing to take off and use his legs, which has led to some positive plays for Denver. However, it’s undeniable that Wilson has lost a step from earlier in his career and is less capable of eluding defenders than he was earlier in his career, leading to more sacks and other negative plays. 

It’s still early in the relationship between Payton and Wilson, and things could get better. I believe Wilson could be effective in a game manager role but that’s not what the team is paying him to be and the rest of the team isn’t good enough right now to have a lot of success playing that way. Wilson’s contract still limits the options the Broncos will have after this season. But it’s looking more and more like Denver will need to thoroughly explore its long-term options in 2024. 

Minnesota Vikings

Much to the chagrin of fans in Minnesota, the Vikings were one of the popular picks for teams to take a step back from 2022 to 2023. I was in that group, citing a regression to the mean from their 11-0 record in close games last year and predicting the Vikings would miss the playoffs. So far, the law of averages remains undefeated. 

There’s a long way to go still but the Vikings are 0-2 in close games in 2023, dropping Week 1’s home game to the Buccaneers by a score of 20-17 and having a late rally fall short, 34-28, on Thursday against the Eagles. Turnovers have been a major problem for the Vikings in both games. Minnesota gave the ball away three times in an otherwise dominant first half against Tampa Bay and four times total against the Eagles. Funny enough, the Vikings have been unusually unlucky in the turnover department so far. Out of their seven turnovers, six have been lost fumbles. The ball has just literally not bounced their way. 

That doesn’t mean there aren’t serious problems in Minnesota. The offensive line has been a major issue in the first two games, especially on the interior. That was exacerbated when starting C Garrett Bradbury went down in Week 1 with a back injury. There’s been little room for new starting RB Alexander Mattison to run through two games. 

On defense, new DC Brian Flores certainly has a more aggressive approach and there have been some high points. The unit flummoxed Eagles QB Jalen Hurts for a half on Thursday until Philadelphia turned to its ground game, at which point the Vikings defense turned into just a speed bump. Veteran Danielle Hunter looks like a man on a mission with four sacks in two games but the edge rushing spot across from him is in flux with Marcus Davenport banged up. It’s likely that side of the ball will be a work in progress all season. 

The good news for the Vikings is that veteran QB Kirk Cousins looks great and the pass-catching talent remains strong. First-round WR Jordan Addison looks like he’s hit the ground running. They’re only a game back in the NFC North after both the Lions and Packers lost in Week 2. So they have a chance to bounce back if they can stop shooting themselves in the foot at this current rate. 

New England Patriots

You could easily argue the Patriots have had the league’s toughest schedule the first two weeks with games against the defending NFC champion Eagles and the ascending Dolphins. New England has put up a fight in both games after falling behind early but their opponents so far have just been better. 

The problem is that puts an exclamation point on the issues everyone had with this team coming into the season. As long as HC Bill Belichick is around, the floor for this team is going to be reasonably high. He’s too good a coach on defense and special teams. But since Tom Brady left, the Patriots have been outgunned against the heavy hitters of the league, and they have seemingly refused to compensate by loading up the offense around QB Mac Jones. Two losses against two of the potential top teams in the NFL show the Patriots are exactly who we thought they were. 

Plenty of teams would find solace in moral victories by playing hard against the Eagles and Dolphins, but the standard in New England is higher. Patriots owner Robert Kraft doesn’t want to pat his team on the back, he’s used to dominating — and that’s exactly why it’s not out of the question that Belichick’s job could be on the line if the Patriots don’t have the success Kraft is expecting. Belichick hasn’t started a season 0-2 in two decades and this is awful timing for such an inauspicious start. 

The good news is that the Patriots still have a path to the playoffs. Some of the other AFC teams that were expected to be contenders have stumbled out of the gates too. There are early signs that the Patriots can at least be a competent NFL offense, unlike last season, even if their lack of firepower will hurt them at times. They need to get healthy on the offensive line, though. The schedule will ease up from here and give the team opportunities to make up ground in the win column. But there’s no question that the Patriots have already squandered some of the little room for error they had. 

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals were a popular Super Bowl pick before the season, and for good reason. They returned most of the key players from last year’s squad that was within a whisker of winning the AFC and was in the Super Bowl two years ago. They’re arguably the most surprising 0-2 team, and most people will give them the best chance to shrug this off given they started last year 0-2 as well. 

Things are different this year, though. The calf injury to starting QB Joe Burrow looms large. It knocked him out for nearly all of training camp and the preseason, and the Bengals offense looked like a unit that had almost no practice time together in Week 1 against the Browns. Cleveland’s defense deserves a ton of credit, but Burrow had the worst game of his career and threw for just 82 yards. 

Things got a little better, but not by much, in Week 2 against the Ravens. Burrow and the passing game started slow yet again before putting together a few drives in the second half against a shorthanded Ravens secondary. It was a more competitive game, but Baltimore led throughout and was able to close things out on the ground against a suddenly leaky Bengals run defense. 

To make matters worse, Burrow reaggravated his calf injury, calling into question his availability for Week 3 against a better-than-expected Rams squad. His backup, Jake Browning, has not thrown an NFL pass and has not been impressive in preseason action. Cincinnati is in big trouble if he has to play. 

There’s still a lot of talent on this roster which makes it hard to write the Bengals off the same way you can other teams on this list. But things look bad right now in Cincinnati and there’s no way around that. The 0-2 record stings more because it’s come against fellow AFC North teams, putting the Bengals behind the eight-ball in the division. Burrow’s calf injury seems like something that’s going to linger and be a factor for the offense to overcome for weeks, if not the whole season. 

Under normal circumstances, the upcoming three-game stretch against the Rams, Titans and Cardinals would be a get-right opportunity for Cincinnati. But even if Burrow can play, that slate all of a sudden looks a lot more challenging than it did two weeks ago. The playoff odds for 0-2 teams are bad, but they’re even worse for 0-3 or 1-4. 

Los Angeles Chargers

The Chargers entered this season with a lot of hope and optimism. New OC Kellen Moore was going to unlock QB Justin Herbert and Los Angeles’ passing offense while the defense would improve in Year 3 under HC Brandon Staley with the benefit of good health. The Chargers would finally shrug the monkey off their back and emerge as contenders in the AFC. 

We should have known better. 

The Chargers once again look like chronic underachievers. The defense was shredded by the Dolphins in Week 1 and while the offense kept pace for most of the game, the protection folded on two pivotal drives at the end of the game when the Chargers most needed a play. 

In Week 2 against the Titans, the numbers looked a lot better but the defensive struggles still played a major role in the 27-24 overtime loss. The Chargers gave up two huge explosive passing plays that led to touchdowns for Tennessee. A week after Titans QB Ryan Tannehill threw three interceptions against the Saints, the Chargers allowed him to go 20-24 with no turnovers. Tennessee was able to string some long drives together for points at key times. 

On offense, the Chargers had a relatively productive day. The Titans have a gnarly front seven and they made their share of plays. Tennessee shut down the run game, especially late when Los Angeles was trying to burn clock, and got a key sack on a three-man rush that forced the Chargers to settle for a field goal at the end of regulation. Still, the numbers they’re putting up are good enough to win. They’re No. 4 in the NFL in total offense and have not turned the ball over. To be 0-2 after that is a very Chargers thing. 

At this point, the pressure has to be high on Staley. When a talented team is underperforming, the scrutiny naturally falls on the coach — especially when that coach is supposed to be a defensive specialist and that phase of the game seems to be holding the team back the most. Staley also continues to be an enigma on his decisions of when and when not to be aggressive. Los Angeles went for it twice on fourth down in the first 20 minutes of the game and used a trick play on a two-point conversion to go up 11-0 instead of 10-0 early on. Yet Staley turned down a fourth-and-1 on the Titans’ 44-yard-line in that same time period, choosing instead to punt instead of go for points that could have made a difference in the outcome later. 

Stuff like that looms large for a team that consistently has issues finishing and closing out games. The Chargers shook off a slow start (though not an 0-2 one) last year to make the playoffs, and the roster does have a lot of talent. There aren’t obvious injury issues or talent deficiencies like there are for some of these other 0-2 teams, they just have to play better. But when it’s that simple, it’s never really that simple. The Chargers should be the easiest bet as a rebound candidate among the 0-2 teams. But history says betting on the Chargers will leave you burned.