The NFL regular season is officially underway, with 16 teams starting the year on the right foot at 1-0, while the latter 16 weren't so lucky. Utilizing Champs or Chumps for our latest NFL news piece, RotoWire.com looked at how teams ended up the rest of the season after starting their season with an 2-0, 1-1 or 0-2 record since 2015 season. The following are the amount of teams that finished with each record since 2015:
2-0 – 83 teams, 1-1 – 146 teams, 0-2 – 83 teams.
Season Performance Of NFL Teams Starting 2-0
Situation | Number of Teams | Percentage |
Making The Playoffs | 56 of 128 possible | 43.8% |
Making Divisional Round | 35 of 80 possible | 43.8% |
Making Conference Championship | 22 of 40 possible | 55.0% |
Making Super Bowl | 12 of 20 possible | 60.0% |
Winning Super Bowl | 5 of 10 possible | 50.0% |
For the 16 teams that started 2025 with a victory, the proverbial tea leaves of the last 10 seasons tell us that good things may, in fact, be around the corner. That's because 56 of the 128 teams that started 2-0 (or 43.8%) reached the postseason, with 35 out of 80 (or 43.8%) made the Divisional Round.
Throw in the fact that five out of 10 won the Super Bowl and 12 out of 20 reached the 'Big Game' and you have a decent idea of how important it is to get off to a solid start in the modern NFL.
Interestingly enough, each of the top three teams on FanDuel Sportsbook's Super Bowl LX odds board started the year with a win, with the Buffalo Bills (+650), Philadelphia Eagles (+700) and Green Bay Packers (+750) ranked atop the list, while the Ravens (+750) are the highest ranked 0-1 team, followed by the Kansas City Chiefs, at +1000.
Season Performance Of NFL Teams Starting 1-1
Situation | Number of Teams | Percentage |
Making The Playoffs | 62 of 128 possible | 48.4% |
Making Divisional Round | 39 of 80 possible | 48.8% |
Making Conference Championship | 17 of 40 possible | 42.5% |
Making Super Bowl | 8 of 20 possible | 40.0% |
Winning Super Bowl | 5 of 10 possible | 50.0% |
For the latter 16 teams in the league that lost in Week 1, all hope is not lost just yet, as 48.4% of the squads (62 out of 128) that split their first two regular season contests went on to reach the playoffs, while 48.8% (39 out of 80) made the Divisional Round.
Of the teams that started the season 1-1, 42.5% of them wound up in the NFL Conference Championship Round, while 8 of the 20 possible teams (or 40%) made the Super Bowl and 5 of 10 (or 50%) won it all after splitting their first two regular season games.
That could help explain why teams like Baltimore (which lost in come-from-ahead fashion to the Buffalo Bills, 41-40, on Sunday Night Football in Week 1) and the Chiefs (who lost to the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil on Friday, 27-21) are still so highly ranked on FanDuel Sportsbook's Super Bowl odds board right now. For the Ravens and Chiefs, it's far too early to think about trade rumors.
Season Performance Of NFL Teams Starting 0-2
Situation | Number of Teams | Percentage |
Making The Playoffs | 9 of 128 possible | 7.0% |
Making Divisional Round | 6 of 80 possible | 7.5% |
Making Conference Championship | 1 of 40 possible | 2.5% |
Making Super Bowl | 0 of 20 possible | 0.0% |
While teams that go 1-1 or better are in the proverbial postseason driver's seat, the opposite is true of those that drop their first two regular season contests, with nine of the 128 teams that did so (or 7%) reaching the playoffs that year.
While the stats are slightly rosier for 0-2 teams when it comes to making the Divisional Round of the playoffs (with 7.5% of the 80 teams possible making it that far), things get bleak from there.
That's because a total of one out of 40 teams (or 2.5%) that started 0-2 made the NFL Conference Championship round that season, while none reached the Super Bowl, amping up the pressure on the squads that fell short in Week 1 to get in groove when the pigskin starts flying across the gridirons of the 32-team league this weekend.
