With Philadelphia’s loss on Monday night, the Eagles joined the ranks of NFL teams with the dismal outlook that comes with an 0-2 to start the season. 

While this is indeed a bad way to begin their football campaign, looking a little deeper at the 0-2 mark reveals an even darker truth: pack it up boys and start playing for draft picks, ’cause your chances of making the playoffs this season are slim at best, no chance is more likely! 

My good friend Mr. East turned me on to a stat that revealed that over the past seven NFL seasons (since 2000) out of the 55 teams that started the season 0-2, only five made it to the post season! So fans of the New York Jets and Giants, Bills, Dolphins, Eagles, Falcons, Rams, Saints, Raiders and Chiefs, well… Better luck next season as they have a slim 9.1% chance at the post season.Meanwhile teams that start the season 2-0 enjoy a robust 57.6% chance of getting to the playoffs.  The biggest surprise of this season has to be the darlings of last year’s NFL season, the New Orleans Saints who are rounding out the bottom of the NFC South Division at 0-2. So you can add them to the list of “Who dat, say dey gonna miss da playoffs – hear.”   As for the darlings of last years NFL season the New Orleans Saints, guess what? The Saints are rounding out the bottom of the NFC South Division at 0-2. So you can add them to the list of “Who dat, say dey gonna miss da playoffs – hear.”   A quick glance at this dubious list and we see a bunch of the teams we had imagined would be there like the hapless Raiders and the embattled Falcons. But the surprise team on this list other than the Saints is the St. Louis Rams. The Rams are the only 0-fer team in the NFC West. Even more surprising is that the Rams have lost both of these games at home and the once dubbed “greatest show on turf,” has limped to a meager output of 29 points while allowing teams to hang 44 - more than a touchdown difference in each of the Rams’ losses. 

This leads us into a discussion about the most surprising 2-0 teams this season. All of the usual suspects are 2-0 this season like the Indianapolis Colts, the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos. But what is surprising is that so are the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers, the Texans and the 49ers. What a difference a year makes! 

So there are some surprises on both ends of this NFL nugget, and although I don’t relish the idea of being the spoiler for so many teams out there, you can take some comfort in knowing that you have now freed up your Sundays for more artistic pursuits like watching figure skating on ESPN instead of the game. Ouch!