Is it too early to panic in the NFL? These teams don’t want to find out

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.

“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. Pass-rushing star Myles Garrett will miss at least four games after he underwent surgery last week to combat swelling in his left knee. The un-retirement of Aaron Donald will help absorb the loss of Garrett along the defensive line, but Donald won’t be an every-down player.

The Rams’ vaunted offense managed just 190 yards in its first performance against the San Francisco 49ers, as well.

“The big area of focus improvement will be in regard to the pass game and some of the different things that we can do collectively,” coach Sean McVay said. “It always starts with me.”

The Rams are one of five teams this season — joining the Broncos, the Packers, the Cowboys and the Washington Commanders — that already have one division loss. Of that group, NFC East rivals Washington and Dallas find themselves in the most precarious situations. When they play each other Sunday, one will leave 0-2 in its division.

“It’s another division game,” Cowboys pass rusher Rashan Gary said. “Understanding that, we know we just went 0-1, and we can’t do that going into this week. The urgency is up, for sure.”

The Patriots have been here before. Last season they responded to their 0-1 start by losing only two more times over the next four months en route to a Super Bowl appearance. The bounceback was helped, however, by playing the easiest schedule in 26 years.

It will be more difficult to keep this latest season-opening loss from snowballing into something bigger. The Patriots’ next three opponents all made the playoffs last season, starting with Sunday’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers — whose defense sacked New England quarterback Drake Maye five times and forced five turnovers when the teams met last season. An injured ankle will sideline the Steelers’ top offseason acquisition, receiver A.J. Brown, for at least the next four games.

“We’ve said this for as long as I can remember: The teams that continue to improve are going to be the ones that have a chance at the end,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said.

Though there is at least one 0-1 team in all eight NFL divisions, some fared worse than others. Three of the four AFC South teams lost, with the Jacksonville Jaguars the lone outlier. The entire NFC South, meanwhile, is 0-1, including the Carolina Panthers, who have started 0-2 each of the last four seasons. When division rivals Atlanta and Carolina play Sunday, one is guaranteed to leave 0-2.

It is one of three Week 2 games featuring winless teams, ensuring that one team will stay that way, joining Cowboys-Commanders and Cleveland-Tampa Bay.

Sometimes, an 0-1 start feels worse than one game would indicate. Green Bay’s 17-point loss to division rival Minnesota was the Packers’ sixth consecutive defeat dating to last season, the franchise’s longest losing streak since 1990-91. It was also their third consecutive divisional loss after having held a double-digit lead. Green Bay had led Chicago by 10 in December and again by 18 in a January playoff game, only to lose.

When Green Bay lost its 12-point lead en route to a blowout Sunday, the collapse revived alarm bells about the team’s ability to close out games.

“It’s going to be a topic of conversation for you guys until we do it,” coach Matt LaFleur told reporters Sunday. “That’s the bottom line.”

Said quarterback Jordan Love: “All these games find ways to be close at the end. We’ve got to find ways to be at our best. We’ve talked about it time and time again, and I think we’ll keep talking about it until we figure it out and do something about it.”

Perhaps the team that is most unexpectedly trying to avoid an 0-2 hole is the Chargers, who were given the eighth-best odds to win the Super Bowl, only to be outplayed thoroughly at home by Arizona, a team that was expected to be near the bottom of the standings.

The loss aggravated criticism of quarterback Justin Herbert and the Chargers’ lack of protection for him. Since 2020, when Herbert entered the league, no other quarterback has been sacked more times (228). That total includes the three he took against the Cardinals, including one much-publicized play in which three Chargers blockers teamed up on one Cardinals defender, allowing two to rush free at Herbert.

“It feels like it does in any fight — feels like it does in a football fight where you don’t win,” coach Jim Harbaugh said. “Your mind says, ‘What are you going to do about it?’”

It’s the question facing all 16 of the NFL’s winless teams entering Week 2.