This time every year, I tell you that the NFL playoffs secretly start in Week 3. For the league's 0-2 teams, Week 3 might as well be an eliminator game.
In an era with 17 games and 14 playoff teams, it's possible to dig out of an 0-2 hole and make it to the postseason, something three teams managed to do in 2025. Two of them -- the Bears and Panthers -- even managed to win their divisions at the end of the year.
But since 2002, 102 teams have started their seasons by losing three consecutive games. Even if we expand our scope and treat the seventh seed from 2002 to 2019 as a would-be playoff team, just four of those 102 teams overcame their 0-3 start and finished in the playoff picture, for an advancement rate of 3.9%. Two of them were Mike Tomlin-led Steelers teams that finished seventh in the AFC in 2013 and 2019, missing the postseason because the league hadn't yet gone to the 14-team field.
The other two teams were both editions of the Texans -- and they actually did advance to the playoffs. One came in 2018. The other was last season's Houston squad. The Texans started 0-3, losing to the Rams, Buccaneers and Jaguars by a combined 13 points. From that point forward, they went 12-2, with their only losses coming to the eventual top seeds in the AFC (Broncos) and NFC (Seahawks).
Here we are one year later, and the Texans are back again, joining seven other winless teams through two weeks of the 2026 season. They'll be in the only matchup of 0-2 teams in Week 3 as they travel to Indianapolis to play the Colts. Can they get back on track and avoid needing to defy history yet again? Are there any other teams that have a shot at making it back from 0-2 to advance into the playoffs?
Today, I'll take stock of the eight 0-2 teams around the NFL, break down why each has gotten off to a slow start and rank their chances of still sneaking into the postseason. I also included chances to make the playoffs via ESPN's Football Power Index.
For teams such as the Dolphins, a playoff berth in 2026 wasn't really in the cards to begin with. For many of the teams ahead of Miami, though, there's going to be a sense of urgency to fix things quickly. Nobody wants to give up on their playoff dreams and start thinking about 2027 after three weeks. The Falcons have the first chance to get into the win column with a Thursday night matchup against Green Bay, but they aren't No. 1 on this list as the most likely 0-2 team to turn it around.
Jump to an 0-2 team:
ATL | HOU | IND | LAC
MIA | TB | TEN | WSH
1. Houston Texans
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 41.8% (16th highest)
Well, as we just discussed, the Texans have been here before, starting 0-3 and living to tell the tale in January -- even after losing quarterback C.J. Stroud for a month. That 2025 team went 12-2 after its 0-3 start, driven by the league's best defense. From Week 4 onward, the Texans led the NFL in points allowed per drive (1.5) and were second in EPA per play (minus-0.1). There aren't many 0-3 teams that can count on being the best at anything in football over a three-month span moving forward, which might be why the Texans are one of the rare exceptions to the rule I form this column around each year.
This season's defense, though, hasn't been quite up to the usual standard. Starting with games against Josh Allen and Joe Burrow might do that to a team, but the Texans are 19th in points allowed per drive and 23rd in EPA per play through two weeks. This same defense had also famously flummoxed Allen in regular-season victories during the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but Allen threw for 334 yards and was responsible for four touchdowns in Buffalo's Week 1 victory.
I'm not sure it's time to get alarmed about the Texans' defense. Derek Stingley Jr. has been Mossed for spectacular catches in back-to-back weeks by Dalton Kincaid and Ja'Marr Chase, something that isn't going to happen on a weekly basis. Houston has yet to generate a turnover despite forcing two fumbles and a wild throw from Allen with the game on the line in Week 1, which Kamari Lassiter dropped (Allen threw the winning touchdown pass on the next snap). The 2025 Texans had just two games without a takeaway across their 19 regular-season and postseason contests. The 2026 Texans have two in two.
Instead, I'd just point out that it's really difficult to be one of the very best defenses in football for any sort of multiyear stretch of time. The Texans aren't going to be a below-average unit for very long, and they're going to look a lot better when they're facing the likes of Daniel Jones and Cam Ward in the weeks to come. It would be stunning if they really struggled for months on end.
Consider, though, that the Texans finished second in scoring defense last year. If we take the second-best scoring defense for each season since 2002 and see where they ranked the following year, their average rank fell to 12th. I would be surprised if the Texans were outside the top 10 by the time we looked at the end of the season, but it would hardly be a surprise or unreasonable to expect something closer to the bottom half of the top 10 than a return to the top two.
And that would be an issue, because while Stroud has righted the ship after last season's disastrous playoff run, the problems that have plagued the Texans' offense around Stroud during his time in the pros haven't improved. After adding running back David Montgomery, re-signing guard Ed Ingram and offensive tackle Trent Brown and adding offensive linemen Keylan Rutledge, Evan Brown, Wyatt Teller and Braden Smith, the hope was that general manager Nick Caserio had finally found a running game for his quarterback.
Through two weeks, that run game hasn't been present. The Texans are 28th in success rate, 29th in EPA per snap and 30th in yards per carry on designed runs. Montgomery scored three touchdowns in the opener, but he has found space hard to come by, averaging 2.7 yards per attempt on the ground. Part of the problem has been availability. Ingram missed the loss to the Bengals, and Smith is on injured reserve because a foot injury.
The run issues materially impacted the Texans against the Bengals. Despite Caserio expressing his confidence that coach DeMeco Ryans had confidence in the run game after Week 1, Ryans quickly pivoted in the other direction one week later.
After the Texans were stuffed on a fourth-and-1 in the first half and failed to pick up a yard on second-and-1 and third-and-1 on a drive in the second half, the Texans decided to attempt a 58-yard field goal in lieu of trying to convert on fourth-and-short, only for Ka'imi Fairbairn's attempt to fall short. This isn't a situation where teams try to kick anymore; over the past three years, when teams have trailed by four points or more and faced a fourth-and-1 between 35 and 45 yards away from the opposing end zone, they've gone for it 180 out of 190 times.
NFL Next Gen Stats saw the decision to attempt a field goal (let alone miss it) as one that cost the Texans 7.4 points of win probability. You can understand why Ryans thought the situation was hopeless, but the Texans can't afford to make those sort of decisions and survive against good football teams. It didn't really matter in the big picture given that the Texans lost by 14 points, but the Texans need to be able to run the ball effectively enough for their coach to at least retain a tiny bit of hope.
A win against the Colts on Sunday in what amounts to a de-facto playoff game would calm concerns in Houston. And after what happened in 2025, there isn't the same sort of panic after an 0-2 start that there would typically be for a team with championship aspirations. Given those expectations, though, starting the season by losing to a pair of teams that the Texans would expect to see again in the postseason picture is a disappointing start. And if the Texans do fall to the Colts next week, their margin for error would grow perilously thin.
2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 16.6% (24th)
What a weird start to the season for a perpetually weird team. The Bucs famously collapsed in the second half of the 2025 season, falling from 6-2 at their bye to out of the playoffs. Of course, one of the two games they won after the bye was a must-win contest against the Panthers in Week 18, briefly opening up their chances for a playoff berth yet again, only to have them extinguished when the Falcons beat the Saints the following day.
In Week 1 of the 2026 season, the Bucs lost to the Bengals. They mostly contained the Cincinnati offense, only for the Bengals' defense to create four takeaways. One week later, the Bucs took an embarrassing home loss to the Browns, enduring a multihour lightning delay before failing to finish off a two-minute drill. In some ways, the Buccaneers have been unlucky. In others, they simply haven't been very good.
You can spin the loss to the Bengals both ways. The Buccaneers were able to move the ball for most of the contest, as Cincinnati failed to force a single punt out of the Buccaneers all game. Tampa fumbled four times, and the Bengals recovered all four. Protecting the football is a skill, and if you watched those fumbles, you very clearly saw players who weren't doing a very good job of shielding the ball from defenders.
What happens after the ball hits the turf is luck, and if the Bucs had landed on two of those four fumbles -- which would be our usual expectation -- the final score might be different. Tampa lost two fumbles inside the red zone on drives that might have ended in touchdowns. It fumbled twice on its own side of the field, and the Bengals turned those plays into 14 points of their own. Bad luck? Bad play? Probably both.
The Buccaneers actually did a reasonable job on defense in that game, limiting Ja'Marr Chase to 12 receiving yards and keeping the Bengals below 4.0 yards per carry. They were lit up by Mike Gesicki, continuing a problem that was supposed to be solved this offseason. The Bucs were a mess against tight ends last year, and even after adding Alex Anzalone and Josiah Trotter to the roster this offseason, they're off to a rough start there in 2026.
I can't make the same argument about their performance against the Browns, though. While Cleveland couldn't get anything going on the ground, Deshaun Watson went 24-of-30 for 238 yards and two touchdowns. One was a 55-yard completion to Denzel Boston when the rookie found a hole in zone coverage and then broke tackles from Anzalone and Antoine Winfield Jr. before running to the end zone. The other was a 17-yard score from Blake Whiteheart against man coverage on a mesh concept when it looked like Trotter failed to follow Whiteheart across the field, leaving the tight end completely unblocked in the flat.
Todd Bowles-led defenses are supposed to be renowned for their ability to rush the passer. Even while struggling last season amid transitions in the lineup, Tampa was 11th in pressure rate. Bowles had to blitz at the third-highest rate in the league to get there, but Vita Vea & Co. were still able to impact opposing quarterbacks.
Through two weeks in 2026 -- even with Bowles blitzing again at the third-highest rate -- the Bucs are 31st in pressure rate. Some of that is a product of playing the Bengals and Browns; Tampa has faced the fastest time to pass so far, but that alone shouldn't be stopping the Bucs from getting home. The Patriots, who also blitz at one of the highest rates in the league and have opposing quarterbacks averaging the fourth-fastest time to pass so far this season, are fourth in the NFL in pressure rate.
Tampa's starting defensive linemen have a combined zero sacks this season, as their three quarterback takedowns have come from Trotter (an off-ball linebacker), A'Shawn Robinson (a nose tackle) and David Walker (a backup edge rusher with nine career snaps). Between Vea, Calijah Kancey, Yaya Diaby and first-round pick Rueben Bain Jr., the Bucs should be able to create pressure with their front four, let alone when Bowles adds his pressures to the mix. A defense that blitzes a ton and doesn't get home is dead on arrival.
On offense, the hope was that Baker Mayfield would get off to a hot start after agreeing to terms on a contract extension just before the start of the season, but he has struggled. He didn't do a good enough job of protecting the football in Week 1. And in Week 2, during what was supposed to be a revenge game against Cleveland, Mayfield repeatedly sprayed throws high all over the field, including a miss on the decisive fourth-down throw to Chris Godwin Jr. that ended the contest. He's taking sacks on more than 10% of his dropbacks while averaging just 6.4 yards per attempt.
The one bright spot for the Bucs has been the return of their run game. Bucky Irving has looked excellent to start the season, averaging 5.4 yards per carry. The offensive line is generating 3.2 yards before first contact for Irving this season, the second-best mark behind what James Cook III has seen in Buffalo. Irving is also one of the rare players averaging more yards per rush (5.4) than per reception (4.5), although he has at least caught 100% of the balls thrown in his direction.
You could make a reasonable case that the Buccaneers have played as well as any of the other teams on this list. You could also point out that they lost to the Browns at home one week after Cleveland looked like it didn't belong on an NFL field against Jacksonville. Both takes seem fair. But the Bucs are alive in the NFC South because nobody is ever really eliminated from contention in that division.
3. Indianapolis Colts
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 25.9% (20th)
The Colts will look back on last week's loss to the Chiefs as a missed opportunity. Indy led at halftime and got to midfield with 40 seconds to go in the fourth quarter with a chance to attempt a winning field goal if it just could have picked up a third-and-4. A touchdown in overtime would have won the Colts the game, but after a 48-yard catch by Laquon Treadwell, the run game stalled and Shane Steichen decided to kick a field goal to tie it up. I don't want to second-guess that decision, which seemed reasonable at the time given that the Colts were facing a fourth-and-8, but you know what happened next.
The two big bets general manager Chris Ballard made this offseason aren't off to great starts. Receiver Alec Pierce signed a four-year, $114 million deal to return in free agency, had five catches through two games and reaggravated the calf injury he was dealing with during the offseason. He's out indefinitely, and while the Colts signed Darius Slayton to take Pierce's spot in the lineup, Indy will be down its primary field stretcher moving forward.
The more concerning problem might be the play of Daniel Jones, who looks more like the guy who was run out of town in New York than the one who revitalized his career with Indianapolis last season. It might be understandable given that Jones is recovering from a torn Achilles, but he has been a low-impact game manager so far this season. Jones is averaging 6.1 yards per attempt as a passer and has just four carries for 14 yards.
Jones isn't producing many negative plays, as he has been sacked on only 3.1% of his snaps, but the average Jones dropback is producing 5.5 yards. That's 27th among quarterbacks so far. A year ago, Jones generated 7.3 yards per dropback, which was the third-best rate in the league before his Achilles tear. Indy is still generating explosive plays through Jonathan Taylor and the run game, which continues to look impressive, but in a play-action heavy offense, Jones isn't creating the big plays we saw in 2025. Given that his downfield production last season was an outlier relative to the rest of his career, there have to be real concerns that the Colts have bought high on Jones after the hottest half-season of his life.
And while it might be a product of facing Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes to start the season, the expensively assembled Colts secondary hasn't been able to do anything to slow down the pass. Indianapolis is allowing a league-high 9.1 yards per attempt through the air.
Charvarius Ward and Sauce Gardner have been reasonable enough, although the former played only about half of the snaps in the loss to the Chiefs. Instead, defenses are picking the Colts apart over the middle of the field, throwing at their linebackers and inexperienced slot corner Justin Walley, who has a 145.6 passer rating in coverage. Indy is allowing teams to average more than 12 yards per throw to the hashes and seams this season, the worst mark in the NFL. The average pass attempt in that direction is generating nearly 0.7 EPA per play for opposing defenses, which is better than what the typical Josh Allen dropback has looked like this season. The Texans -- who might have Dalton Schultz as their lead receiver if Nico Collins can't go this week -- will be targeting the middle of the field when these two teams play Sunday.
Missed tackles have also been a problem. Indianapolis was one of the worst tackling teams in 2024, but the addition of Ward and Cam Bynum helped rectify some of those issues. Through two games, though, the Colts have been the fourth-worst tackling team in the NFL on a per-attempt basis, according to Next Gen Stats. Again, there's an element of the Chiefs and Ravens not being particularly easy teams to tackle, but the Colts can't afford to give up extra yardage given how porous they've been over the middle of the field.
The good news for the Colts is that the AFC South has a combined one win through eight games, so their 0-2 start hasn't pushed them too far out of contention. Things also get easier from here on out. Indy has played the toughest schedule so far per ESPN's FPI, but it gets the sixth-easiest slate moving forward. After this week's game against the Texans, though, four of the next five games are on the road, including a trip to London to play the Commanders.
4. Los Angeles Chargers
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 7.2% (26th)
Disaster. There's no other way to characterize what we've seen from the Chargers. They look disjointed, careless, poorly coached and sloppy on both sides of the ball. For whatever bad luck they've had with drops turning into interceptions, consider that they fumbled six times in the loss to the Raiders and recovered five, finally failing to fall on the football when Omarion Hampton coughed it up with only 3:52 to go. Justin Herbert followed by throwing an interception into traffic on the next drive.
That might be just one bad sequence until you consider what happened the week before against Arizona. After a three-and-out, the Chargers had a punt blocked inside their own red zone for a short field. The Cardinals immediately scored. Herbert's response on the next drive was to throw an interception on a deep shot. After the Cardinals chewed up clock on the next drive, the Chargers spammed penalties and ended up in a third-and-30, which produced two checkdowns and a turnover of downs. When this team has faced adversity, it has completely melted down, which is something I would have not expected to see from a Jim Harbaugh operation.
And, well, more adversity is about to arrive. As you might have heard, the Chargers are about to face one of the more brutal stretches any NFL team has dealt with in recent memory. Over the next seven weeks, the Chargers will go up against the Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, Rams, Texans and Ravens. That group includes the FPI's second-, third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-best teams in terms of Super Bowl odds. The model has the Chargers as very slight favorites at home against the Broncos and as underdogs in the other six contests.
The FPI projects the Chargers to win about 2.3 of those seven games on average, which would leave Harbaugh's team at 2-7 as it hits the second half of the season. While we've seen teams rescue themselves from 0-2 and even 0-3 to make it to the playoffs, only one team in NFL history has started 2-7 and made the playoffs: the 2020 Washington Football Team, which won the NFC East with a 7-9 record. The 2026 Chargers can't count on taking down the AFC West with seven victories. They're going to need to win three and preferably four of these seven games to have much hope of making it back to the postseason.
So, are there any reasons to think the Chargers can essentially battle the toughest part of their schedule to a draw after losing comfortably to the Cardinals and Raiders? Based on their performance through two games, not really. If anything, the Chargers have been a little lucky. They've scored touchdowns on four of their five trips inside the red zone on offense and held teams to field goals half of the time in the red zone on defense. They've recovered more than their fair share of fumbles. Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland missed a makeable field goal against them in Week 1.
They have, by Chargers standards, not been overrun by a flood of disastrous injuries to their star players, although Ladd McConkey was clearly limited by a rib injury in Week 2 and played only 45% of the offensive snaps during the loss to the Raiders. (Las Vegas fans might note that the Raiders managed just fine without tight end Brock Bowers, though.) The passing offense has been bad with McConkey on the field and downright hopeless without him; Herbert has a 44.3 Total QBR with McConkey in the lineup and an 8.5 mark without him, averaging 3.7 yards per attempt with two picks.
That offense is going to have to evolve on the fly. The Chargers lost their two primary blocking tight ends, Charlie Kolar and David Njoku, to injuries against the Raiders (though Kolar won't go on injured reserve as previously thought). Oronde Gadsden is more of a move tight end than the in-line option the Chargers wanted. Fullback Alec Ingold is still around, but the Chargers have been in 11 personnel just 42% of the time this season, down from 57% a year ago. The offense will run through the wide receivers more often in the weeks to come, if only out of sheer necessity.
The biggest addition might have been offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, who was brought in to replace Greg Roman with the idea that the widely respected former Dolphins coach could finally build a run game to support Herbert. Through two games, the Chargers are 31st in EPA per play on designed runs. They haven't had center Tyler Biadasz, who was lost for the year during the preseason, but the run game has been completely ineffective. Hampton fumbling twice in two weeks hasn't helped matters.
If there's anything that should appear in the weeks to come, it'd be explosive gains on the ground. McDaniel was an expert at generating them in Miami with a variety of backs, but the Chargers have just one designed run of 15 or more yards through two weeks -- a 17-yard run by Hampton against the Raiders last week. The Dolphins generated 79 such runs from 2023 to 2025, the third most of any offense.
With Hampton and Keaton Mitchell, the Chargers should have enough athleticism to generate big gains if their runners get any hint of the open field. Unfortunately, McDaniel's run game is averaging 0.7 yards before first contact, the worst mark in the league. Chargers tape is littered with defensive linemen and linebackers running free into the backfield. Cardinals linebacker Mack Wilson Sr. had two completely free passes in Week 1, and opposing defensive linemen have had little trouble slipping past center Jake Slaughter and right guard Cole Strange, two of the new additions to the run game.
As a result, the Chargers might have to lean into throwing the football, going as far as Herbert can take them. They have the seventh-heaviest run lean on early downs in neutral game scripts and are averaging a league-worst minus-0.5 EPA per play on those runs. For whatever promise McDaniel offered as a run-game designer and offensive architect, the Chargers look like they've never played together and are running this offense for the first time every series.
The defense also looks like it has slipped after the departure of coordinator Jesse Minter. The Chargers have been league average by EPA allowed per play through two weeks. While they slowed down the run and stifled the Raiders' Ashton Jeanty last week, the pass defense ranks 26th in QBR allowed, a significant downgrade from what was the NFL's best unit by that same metric a year ago.
It's one thing when Trey McBride simply outperforms Derwin James Jr., a matchup of great-on-great that went to the Cardinals in Week 1. It's another to see Tre Tucker waltzing to the post for a 40-yard touchdown in Week 2 or for Cody White to be left completely unguarded for a touchdown off a play-action counter concept Klint Kubiak had on tape last season from his time with the Seahawks.
The Chargers rank 30th in pressure rate despite blitzing at roughly a league-average rate. If anything, again, they've been fortunate. Jeanty helped their cause by dropping three passes Sunday. They've faced play-action at the fourth-lowest rate, a figure that will rise as they face the Bills (who run play-action at the sixth-highest rate) this week.
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a better version of the Chargers in the weeks to come, if only because there's too much talent and too many experienced people in the room to not find some sense of competency. But it's unlikely see that version of the Chargers -- let alone something resembling the version people had in their heads during the offseason -- on a weekly basis. With the Chiefs looking like their old selves, the Raiders starting 2-0 and the Broncos righting the ship with a win over the Jaguars, the Chargers are already in a ton of trouble in the AFC. And have you heard about their schedule?
5. Atlanta Falcons
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 1.5% (29th)
No head coach in recent memory has cycled through quarterbacks quite like Kevin Stefanski. During the 2023 season, his Browns became the first team since at least 2002 (and likely much longer) to start five different QBs in a single season. They also made the playoffs, which seems like it shouldn't be possible. The Browns started four different quarterbacks in 2024 and three in 2025.
The Falcons, Stefanski's new team, will already be on their third quarterback of the season when Michael Penix Jr. returns to the lineup and starts against the Packers on Thursday night. Cooper Rush was unexpectedly pushed into the starting lineup after Tua Tagovailoa suffered an oblique injury just before the start of the season. And while Rush was reportedly dealing with back spasms of his own, he was unplayable. He threw four picks on 39 dropbacks, took sacks more than 11% of the time and failed to average even 6 yards per pass attempt. His 5.2 Total QBR was 24 points below that of any other starter through two weeks.
Rush was benched midway through the second half against the Panthers for undrafted rookie Jack Strand, who then threw a pick-six on his first NFL pass. Strand averaged 0.1 adjusted net yards per pass dropback, although his 12.3 Total QBR was more than double Rush's production. Strand isn't likely to start a game for the Falcons this season, but we could see more of him in garbage time if the Falcons have to cycle through more quarterbacks.
The vibes through two weeks aren't great. The Falcons were actually competitive with the Steelers in Week 1 despite their complete lack of competent quarterback play, but two missed field goals from Nick Folk and a pick-six from T.J. Watt made the difference in a 20-13 defeat. The Falcons absolutely were not competitive against the Panthers in the home opener Sunday, turning the ball over five times and failing to get into the red zone for the second consecutive week.
Penix will restore at least some level of competency to the passing offense. Stefanski has moved the ball by leaning heavily on Bijan Robinson as a runner and receiver, and the running back has nearly 52% of Atlanta's touches and 45% of its scrimmage yards. But the Falcons had just three completions on passes traveling 10 or more yards in the air through two games. Every other team has at least six, and the average team has about three per half.
Penix has averaged just under 9 air yards per attempt as a pro over the past two years, a rate topped by only Anthony Richardson Sr. and Marcus Mariota. The offense should at least be able to threaten defenses with chunk plays off play-action, which should get receiver Drake London involved and hopefully create more space for Robinson on the ground. It remains to be seen whether Penix holds on to that job once Tagovailoa is healthy enough to return, but Atlanta should get a massive upgrade in going from replacement-level quarterbacks Rush and Strand to the low-end starter level that Penix and Tagovailoa occupy.
The defense, meanwhile, has been shredded. The Falcons are without second-year edge rushers Jalon Walker (out for the season because of a torn ACL) and James Pearce Jr. (suspended for half the season). Defensive tackle Da'Shawn Hand suffered a season-ending quad injury, and top cornerback A.J. Terrell Jr. was forced out of the loss to the Panthers because of a groin issue and placed on injured reserve, costing the Falcons one of their best defensive players for the next month.
It actually hasn't been as bad as you might think from seeing last week's Panthers point total. The Falcons are ninth in points allowed per drive and 10th in EPA allowed per play this season. They're 12th in pressure rate even without their top two pass rushers -- owing in part to late addition Za'Darius Smith, who has 2.5 sacks on 44 snaps -- while blitzing at the second-lowest rate in the NFL.
Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich has loaded up the box against Aaron Rodgers and Bryce Young, which has helped Atlanta field the league's best run defense by success rate through two weeks. Atlanta has given up two return touchdowns on offense and inherited the league's third-worst average starting field position on defense because its offense can't stop turning the ball over. No defense is going to post good totals under those circumstances.
As I said with the Buccaneers, no team is out of it in the NFC South after two games. As bad as they've looked, the Falcons are still one game out of a tie for first place in the division. Last year, the Panthers started 0-2 and still won the division over a Bucs team that opened the season 3-0 and hit its midseason bye at 6-2. There's still some reason to be hopeful about the Falcons, although that could quickly fade if injuries sink the roster in the weeks to come.
6. Washington Commanders
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 7.4% (25th)
I already shared my thoughts on the Jayden Daniels situation in Monday's column, so I won't dwell too much on the quarterback situation for the Commanders. Marcus Mariota has proven himself to be a very competent backup quarterback in years past, but he has also typically operated out of the shotgun or pistol as a pro.
The appointment of David Blough and the suggestion that the Commanders would shift their offense under center as a result hasn't really taken through two weeks. The Commanders have been under center only 31.3% of the time, and while that's more than double what was a league-low 13.0% rate in 2025, it's also still the fourth-lowest rate of any offense in the NFL. What they're doing under center also hasn't been particularly productive, as the Commanders have averaged minus-0.07 EPA per snap under center and plus-0.08 EPA per play in shotgun or pistol.
One or more of a few things could be true. The Commanders could have quarterbacks who aren't effective operating under center. They might have abandoned or limited their shift toward getting under center because they weren't happy with what they saw in the preseason. The shift from Daniels to Mariota, presumably for an extended period of time, might force Blough to push toward more familiar concepts for his new QB to try to make life easier. The Commanders might also just lean further into going under center as the season goes along. This is one we'll have to evaluate down the road.
The first-time coordinator might believe his offense is closer to clicking than it seems, too. The Commanders nearly had two long touchdowns in Sunday's loss to the Cowboys. Daniels (operating from under center) narrowly missed Treylon Burks on what should have been a 56-yard touchdown pass, and rookie wideout Antonio Williams couldn't connect with Terry McLaurin on a trick play in the second half.
And yet, so much of what worked for the Commanders in that game was Daniels creating with his legs, something that was often a product of nothing being open in the passing game. Take scrambles out of the equation for every team and the Commanders are averaging 4.7 yards per play, which would be 27th. They're 28th in explosive play rate, which this new offense was explicitly supposed to create. It'll be unfair to evaluate them by what Mariota does, but even before Daniels was injured, the offense wasn't living up to the offseason hopes.
Starting the year without offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil has sapped Washington in pass protection, and the Commanders might be without guard Sam Cosmi, who is in concussion protocol after taking a hit from his own teammate Sunday. Brandon Coleman, who took over for Tunsil at left tackle, also left the game because of a finger injury, although he's likely to return against the Seahawks in Week 3.
The Commanders did a solid job against the Eagles in Week 1, a game that turned on a couple of big plays by Philadelphia, but the Cowboys picked Daronte Jones' unit apart in Week 2. Dak Prescott threw nearly as many touchdowns (four) as incompletions (five). The Commanders slowed down Dallas' run game, which produced only 40 yards on 17 designed rush attempts, but they were open for business downfield. That's not a recipe for success.
The 2024 draft class is being scrutinized amid a critical season on offense, where Daniels is hurt and the likes of Coleman, Ben Sinnott and Luke McCaffrey haven't lived up to expectations. It's also an issue on defense. Second-round pick Jer'Zhan Newton is on injured reserve. Cornerback Mike Sainristil, who was impressive as a rookie, slipped badly in his second year and has been a target this season. He got lost in coverage on a 61-yard completion to Dontayvion Wicks in the opener, then allowed 24- and 35-yard completions to CeeDee Lamb in the fourth quarter last week.
Lamb picked up another 61 yards on blown coverages, including a 38-yard completion on a play in which both he and KaVontae Turpin were left open for big gains. It's not uncommon for blown coverages to happen early in the season with a new defensive coordinator, but the Commanders have been their own worst enemy on defense at times this season.
The tough reality the Commanders are facing with Daniels extends to the rest of the roster. General manager Adam Peters jump-started the organization's path to contention by drafting Daniels and surrounding him with competent veterans in 2024, but Daniels has been injured for long stretches since the start of the 2025 season, and short-term solutions who made an impact during that run to the NFC title game -- like Austin Ekeler, Zach Ertz and Bobby Wagner -- are no longer in the building.
Peters has spent heavily in free agency and traded for players from other organizations to paper over the holes on a roster that didn't have much young talent. The hope was naturally that Peters would be able to draft well and build that young core while the veterans kept things competent. But it was telling that the Commanders went even more heavily into free agency this offseason, which was a product of wanting to maximize Daniels' rookie deal and the fact that Peters' first two drafts haven't exactly been wild successes outside of the quarterback.
With the Seahawks traveling to face the Commanders in Washington's home opener this week, Daniels sidelined indefinitely and a stretch against the 49ers, Eagles and Rams on the way before we hit mid-November, the Commanders might transition from a team that hopes to contend to one looking toward 2027 if things don't turn around quickly.
7. Tennessee Titans
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 4.4% (28th)
This was going to be the year of developing Cam Ward. The Titans hired Brian Daboll, who did great work with Josh Allen and turned around Daniel Jones' career, as their offensive coordinator. They loaded up with new offensive starters in free agency and used their first-round pick on wide receiver Carnell Tate. They might have paid too much to sign marginal former Giants Wan'Dale Robinson, Daniel Bellinger and Austin Schlottmann, but if Ward looked like an NFL-caliber starter in his second season, all would be forgiven.
So far, 2026 has instead been about hiding Ward. The Titans have a pass rate 10.2% below expectation given their game scripts. Ward's average pass is traveling 5.1 yards in the air, the lowest mark in the league. Daniel Jones is the only quarterback throwing deep less often. Nearly 33% of Ward's throws have been at or behind the line of scrimmage. And as a result, nobody is throwing for first downs less often than Ward.
The new additions -- in part because the Titans just aren't throwing the ball very often -- haven't made an impact. Tate has seven catches for 65 yards. Robinson has six catches for 47 yards while playing just 67% of the snaps. Bellinger was brought in as more of a blocking tight end, so it's not necessarily a surprise that he has only one catch, but he's playing 37% of the offensive snaps. And Schlottmann had a critical holding penalty late in the game against the Eagles, although Tyjae Spears bailed the Titans out by picking up a third-and-22 on the ground.
The Titans were generally conservative with Ward in the fourth quarter of that close game, with his one notable contribution coming on a 41-yard completion to Elic Ayomanor off hard play-action. Maybe we should give coach Robert Saleh the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to concern about his tackles. Dan Moore Jr., who leads the league in sacks allowed over the past two years, is 10th in quick-pressure rate allowed through two weeks. JC Latham, who is fifth over that same span, immediately followed that third-and-22 run from Spears by allowing a lightning-quick sack to Jalen Carter, immediately pushing the Titans into grind-out-the-clock mode.
The run game is still a work in progress. The Titans are fourth in EPA per rush, which sounds great, but so much of that is the one run by Spears in a typically hopeless spot and Ward's work on scrambles and sneaks, where he has scored two touchdowns on six attempts. That stuff counts, but it's probably not sustainable to rely on your quarterback scoring once every three rush attempts or your running back picking up third-and-a-mile every week. Tennessee is 26th by EPA per play on first- and second-down designed rush attempts, which might be a more realistic measure of what its run game actually looks like at the moment.
One of the goals of getting under center and running the ball more often, as the Titans have done this season, is creating explosives off play-action. That's a perfectly reasonable goal, and I've seen Ward make those throws at the second and third level during his pro career so far. When the Titans use play-action this season, though, Ward is averaging only 5.7 air yards per throw and throwing nearly 43% of his pass attempts behind the line of scrimmage. A couple of those throws have been RPOs, and Ward has had to deal with pressure blowing up plays, but the best version of this offense is going to have Ward using those play-fakes to find Tate with space to create after the catch. There hasn't been enough of that through two weeks.
Saleh's defense couldn't protect the late lead over the Eagles, although it did intercept Jalen Hurts twice. The Titans are 29th in QBR allowed though two games. Cor'Dale Flott didn't play against the Eagles, but Philadelphia picked on all three of Tennessee's cornerbacks throughout that drive and beat them with stacks and motion on the two biggest plays of the two-minute drill. Veteran safety Amani Hooker couldn't match to DeVonta Smith's crosser on a 22-yard touchdown in the second quarter.
I expect the pass rush to improve in the weeks to come. The Titans rank third in pressure rate this season, but they haven't been able to finish. They're 29th in converting pressures to sacks. Jeffery Simmons is still wrecking shop, with five quick pressures through two games, but the only other player with more than one is well-traveled edge Jacob Martin, who has two. First-round pick Keldric Faulk has almost exclusively been restricted to early-down work so far, having played on just four third downs across his 38 defensive snaps (one of which was a kneel-down). It seems inevitable that he will get on the field more often as the year goes along.
As it has been for the past few years, success for the Titans is about something more than being competitive. Can this front office accurately identify which players are going to be part of the core moving forward? Can the coaching staff put those players in position to succeed? Can ownership resist the urge to fire the coach or general manager over a 12-month span? A win over the Eagles would have been a feather in the Titans' cap, but after losing two games at home to start the season, four of their six games before the bye are on the road. That doesn't bode well for Tennessee's chances of sticking in the AFC South race.
8. Miami Dolphins
Chances of advancing to the postseason, via ESPN's FPI: 0.1% (32nd)
The Dolphins have generally been as advertised: bad. This roster combines a handful of players who were part of a disappointing 2025 Dolphins team with a 2026 draft class, new quarterback Malik Willis and dozens of journeyman free agents who signed one-year deals this offseason.
New coach Jeff Hafley is committing to the youth movement. Five members of the rookie class -- guard Kadyn Proctor, cornerback Chris Johnson, linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, wideout Caleb Douglas and safety Michael Taaffe -- have played at least 79% of the offensive or defensive snaps through two games. Tight end Will Kacmarek and wideouts Chris Bell and Kevin Coleman Jr. have played in situational roles. Twelve of Miami's 22 most used players on offense and defense are either 2025 or 2026 draftees. One of the primary goals for this season should be evaluating the young talent on the roster, and the Dolphins have been taking their lumps in the process.
Most of those lumps have come at the line of scrimmage, where the Dolphins have shown no ability to control play. Despite blitzing at the ninth-highest rate, Miami ranks dead last in pressure rate at 25%. The Dolphins have yet to sack the opposing quarterback a single time across 56 dropbacks; they are the only team without a sack. Hafley hasn't had 2025 first-round pick Kenneth Grant, who started the season on injured reserve, and 2024 first-rounder Chop Robinson missed the loss to the 49ers because of a concussion, but those guys also combined for six sacks all of last season.
Simultaneously, Hafley has played a hyper-aggressive scheme. The Dolphins play man coverage at the fourth-highest rate in the NFL. They're showing single-high safety looks more than 76% of the time, a figure topped by only the Browns through two games. That choice is helping the Dolphins against the run, where they're getting an extra defender in the box, but it's an impossible task for young cornerbacks to hold up on islands without any sort of pass rush. It should be no surprise that the 49ers torched the Dolphins with their pass game.
On the other side of the ball, the hope was that the Dolphins would be able to run the ball. Miami retained most of its offensive line from 2025 and added a mauler in Proctor. The Dolphins resisted the urge to trade star back De'Von Achane, instead signing one of the league's fastest players to a contract extension. The threat of Willis in the quarterback run game promised to help make life easier for Achane by giving defenses another player who needed to be addressed in the box.
It hasn't come together. Through two weeks, the Dolphins are 21st in EPA per play and 29th in success rate on designed runs. Achane is averaging 3.5 yards per carry, down more than 2 yards per play from where he was a year ago. You might assume that's a product of teams loading up to stop the run, but that hasn't been the case. Achane actually faced loaded boxes far more often in 2025, when the Dolphins were outnumbered in the box on 39% of their lead back's carries. This season, the Dolphins have been outnumbered and facing loaded boxes on less than 23% of Achane's rush attempts. After running outside on more than 72% of his attempts in 2025, though, Achane is breaking plays outside about 42% of the time this season. That's partially a product of simply not having the time or space to get out there after crossing the line of scrimmage.
The Dolphins also haven't leaned on Willis as a runner, with just two designed runs for him through two games. He has taken sacks on more than 15% of his dropbacks, which is up from what was already a deliriously high figure of 13.9% before the 2026 campaign. We haven't really seen a starting quarterback survive in the modern era with that sort of sack rate for any extended period of time, with Justin Fields as maybe the closest comparable. Willis is averaging more than 8 yards per throw, so he's taking shots, but that sort of sack rate is a nonstarter if the Dolphins want to be competitive.
And of course, that's the crux of the tanking problem. The Dolphins want to evaluate their young players, but can you really evaluate the secondary when the pass rush is hopeless? Can you get a good read on Willis when he's throwing to rookies, Malik Washington, Ryan Willis and Greg Dulcich? I can't fault the Dolphins for playing the young guys and rebuilding their roster, but that doesn't mean it's going to be a fun or productive time.