Culture
Can an NFL team go from 0-2 to the playoffs? It’s a long shot, but these 9 teams did it
Nine NFL teams are still looking for their first win of the 2024 season after recording two consecutive losses to open their schedules.
Historically, starting 0-2 has meant the odds are stacked against you. The Athletic’s Austin Mock’s playoff odds reflect that. None of the current 0-2 teams have better than a 44 percent chance to make the playoffs or a 26 percent chance to win their division. Seven of the nine teams already have a less than 20 percent chance.
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But going from 0-2 to the playoffs isn’t impossible.
Nine teams over the past 10 seasons have reached the postseason after an 0-2 start, and two franchises have accomplished the feat multiple times.
Here’s a look at which teams overcame a tough start to advance to the playoffs and how they did it.
How they finished: 10-7, AFC South champions
Postseason result: Lost in divisional round
Houston started 2023 with losses to the Ravens and the Colts, but the Texans had a young roster that hadn’t hit its stride quite yet.
Once rookie QB C.J. Stroud settled in and the Texans solidified the offensive line that would protect him, they got the season back on track.
In Weeks 1 and 2, the Texans allowed Stroud to be sacked 11 times and pressured 44 times, both league highs, according to TruMedia. Houston would allow the ninth-fewest pressures (188) for the rest of the season.
One of the keys to the Texans’ improved pass protection was simply getting their best offensive linemen healthy. Of the six linemen who made the most starts in Weeks 3-18, including Pro Bowler Laremy Tunsil, only Shaq Mason and George Fant started both of the first two games.
Houston, like a few teams on this list, benefited from a weaker division. No other team in the AFC South won more than nine games.
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2022 Cincinnati Bengals
Joe Burrow and the Bengals overcame a slow start to the 2022 season to win 12 games. (Todd Olszewski / Getty Images)
How they finished: 12-4
Postseason result: Lost in conference championship
Coming off a Super Bowl appearance in 2021, the Bengals began 2022 with losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers (in overtime) and Dallas Cowboys before winning four of their next six and closing out the regular season with an eight-game win streak. (Their Week 17 matchup against the Buffalo Bills was canceled after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on the field.)
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow had his two worst games of the season during the 0-2 start, throwing a career-high four interceptions in Week 1 and passing for a season-low 199 yards in Week 2. As Burrow improved, so did the Bengals. In weeks 3-18, Burrow led the NFL in passer rating (105.5) and completion percentage (69.1). He also ranked second in passing touchdowns (32) and touchdown-to-interception ratio (4) during that span.
2018 Houston Texans
How they finished: 11-5
Postseason result: Lost in wild-card round
Houston opened the 2018 season 0-3 with losses to the New England Patriots, Titans and Giants, but a pair of overtime victories in Weeks 4 and 5 turned the tide after the dismal start.
Including those OT wins over the Colts and Cowboys, the Texans pieced together a nine-game win streak buoyed by their ball-hawking. From Weeks 4-13, the Texans forced 19 turnovers, the second-most in the NFL during that span, and scored 74 points off of them, the third-most in the league. After failing to force a turnover in two of those first three losses, Houston forced at least one turnover in every game the rest of the season.
How they finished: 10-6
Postseason result: Lost in wild-card round
The Seahawks struggled to get an effective rushing attack going early in the 2018 season, but after consecutive close losses to the Broncos and Chicago Bears, Seattle sorted out its ground game.
In those two matchups, the Seahawks rushed for 64 and 74 yards and turned the ball over five times. Week 3 saw Seattle finally eclipse 100 yards on the ground in a victory over the Cowboys, and then it was off to the races.
Seattle rushed for more than 100 yards in all but one game the rest of the season and from Weeks 3-17 led the NFL with 173 rushing yards per game. The Seahawks also lost only six turnovers the rest of the season.
Alvin Kamara won Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2017, helping New Orleans get to the playoffs. (Harry How / Getty Images)
How they finished: 11-5
Postseason result: Lost in divisional round
After three straight 7-9 campaigns, the start of the Saints 2007 season appeared to foreshadow more of the same as New Orleans suffered losses to the Minnesota Vikings and Patriots. But stars would soon emerge during an eight-game win streak that followed.
Before the season, the Saints drafted both the Offensive and Defensive Rookies of the Year in Alvin Kamara and Marshon Lattimore, in addition to players like Ryan Ramczyk, Alex Anzalone and Trey Hendrickson, who’ve become starters in the NFL. The Saints also signed running back Adrian Peterson.
When New Orleans began to feature Kamara more, eventually trading Peterson, their offense, led by quarterback Drew Brees, became more explosive. In Weeks 3-17, the Saints led the NFL with 391.9 yards per game and ranked third in scoring with 26.8 offensive points per game, according to TruMedia.
Kamara led the NFL with 6.1 yards per carry and caught 81 passes for 826 yards. He was one of seven Saints named to the Pro Bowl that season.
How they finished: 10-6
Postseason result: Lost in wild-card round
The Dolphins snagged their first win of the 2016 slate in Week 3 with an overtime victory against the Cleveland Browns, but the turnaround wasn’t immediate as two more losses followed. With a 1-4 record heading into Week 6, Miami was trending down.
Then a crucial piece of the offense returned.
Jay Ajayi, a fifth-round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, was inactive in Week 1 and saw limited touches in Weeks 2-5. In Week 6, he carried the ball 25 times for 204 yards and two touchdowns, leading Miami to a 30-15 win against the Steelers.
He followed that up with another 200-yard game against the Bills in Week 7. Ajayi finished the season with 1,272 rushing yards and eight touchdowns as Miami won nine out of 11 to close the season and clinch a wild-card playoff berth.
2015 Houston Texans
How they finished: 9-7
Postseason result: Lost in wild-card round
The Texans dropped their first two games en route to a 1-4 start to the season. Houston was 3-5 at its Week 9 bye, but closed out the season winning six of its last eight with three straight division wins to secure an AFC South championship and a playoff berth.
Houston went 5-1 in its division that season, despite starting four different quarterbacks.
How did the Texans do it? Houston’s defense ranked third in the NFL, allowing 310.2 yards per game. The strength of that unit kept the Texans in games despite the inconsistency at QB, whether due to poor play or injuries.
Houston seemed to get just enough out of their QBs, including Brandon Weeden, who was claimed by Houston after being released by the Cowboys, and T.J. Yates, who signed with the Texans just before their bye week. Both players started and played in games for Houston after its bye and helped the team win five out of the six games either played in.
2015 Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks twice went from 0-2 to the playoffs with Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson. (Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images)
How they finished: 10-6
Postseason result: Lost in divisional round
The Seahawks opened the season 0-2 but were 4-4 by their Week 9 bye. Seattle finished the year winning six of its final eight to secure a wild-card playoff berth.
In each of those first four losses, the Seahawks held a fourth-quarter lead but were unable to close out the game. Once it kicked the habit of blowing leads, Seattle’s offense and staunch defense, which allowed the second-fewest yards per game that season, were able to propel the club back into the playoffs.
2014 Indianapolis Colts
How they finished: 11-5
Postseason result: Lost in conference championship
The Colts had the unfortunate luck of opening their 2014 campaign against two Super Bowl contenders. Despite hanging close in one-score games with the Broncos, who won 12 games and led the NFL in offensive points per game that season, and the Philadelphia Eagles, who finished the season with a top-five offense, Indianapolis still had to carry an 0-2 record into Week 3, when it demolished the Jacksonville Jaguars to jump-start its season.
The Colts would only lose three more times the rest of the year en route to an appearance in the AFC Championship Game.
(Photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)
new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects
By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega
December 18, 2025
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
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