The NFL has a relatively short season, especially compared to the other major professional sports leagues. Even with adding a game to their season recently, teams still only have 17 games to prove their worth as a playoff team, or else they simply begin another long offseason. One guarantee with this short season is that fan bases will have overreactions to anything that happens in a single week, especially if that is the first week of the year.
Across the NFL this week, nowhere is that more true than in Minnesota. With the Vikings losing to the Buccaneers as a heavy favorite in Week One, panic is starting to set in across the fanbase. Making things even tougher is their opponent in week two, the defending NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles. What will the Vikings playoff chances look like if they are to lose against the Eagles this week?
Season Performance of 0-2 NFL Teams
With a bad loss in week one and a tough opponent on the docket in week two, MinnesotaBets decided to look at the history of 0-2 NFL Teams making the playoffs in a given season to brace for the uncomfortable reality that may be coming for the squad. We did this by using stathead.com to look at all 406 occasions that an NFL team has started 0-2. These odds are the type of thing that would help anyone involved in Minnesota sports betting once it launches, hopefully in the near future.
Vikings Must Defeat Eagles on Thursday Night
With an 0-2 start, the chances of even having a winning season are slim, as only 14% of all 0-2 teams have managed the feat. Making the playoffs is even more rare, with under ten percent of the 406 teams turning their seasons around to that point. So, what will the Vikings Super Bowl odds be if they start the season 0-2? If the playoffs do come into play 0-2 teams are still at a disadvantage with only three teams ever winning the Super Bowl after starting the season with two losses.
Minnesota's path to the playoffs doesn’t get much easier after the Philadelphia game, as there are still several tough challenges on the schedule including games against the Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals. A favorable draw that includes playing all of the NFC teams should help, but the loss to the Buccaneers already shows that Minnesota won’t simply show up and win those games. The Vikings still have all of their divisional games left to play and the early takeaways from week one suggest that Detroit and Green Bay will be tough challengers.
As tough as it looks, winning the Thursday Night showdown against the Eagles is imperative for the Vikings to avoid dropping to the dreaded 0-2 record. The history of winless teams through two games makes it too risky for the Vikings and their fans would certainly prefer not to battle history as well as the tough slew of games they have coming up.
