After two weeks of NFL action, only eight teams are still without a win.

But with the league’s expansion to a 17-game schedule, as well as the expanded playoff format, an 0-2 start is no longer the deathblow for a team’s playoff chances. Last year alone the Houston Texans, the Chicago Bears, and the Carolina Panthers all made the playoffs despite dropping their first two games.

Which 0-2 teams could follow suit this year?

Here are those eight 0-2 teams, ranked by their playoff chances.

The Falcons at least kept matters close in Week 1, losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers by a final score of 20-13. The decisive play, however, speaks to arguably their biggest problem as Cooper Rush threw a tough Pick-Six early in the fourth quarter to gift Pittsburgh a 20-10 lead.

Last Sunday against the Carolina Panthers was another story, as the Falcons never looked in the game from the start — when Rush lost a fumble on the first play from scrimmage — and a 34-3 loss was what waited for them.

Michael Penix Jr. will be back for Week 3 against the Green Bay Packers, which could give the offense a boost. But this is a team that looks a long way from a playoff spot.

Yet, you will see a lot of them, as right now Atlanta’s next three games are prime-time affairs. Rejoice!

Two trips west, and two losses for the Miami Dolphins to start the season.

Last Sunday’s 35-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers might be expected, but it is the opening-week loss to the Las Vegas Raiders that is more worrisome. Miami has struggled on both sides of the football through two weeks, and ranks near the bottom of the league in several categories, including scoring offense (30th), total offense (27th), and scoring defense (30th).

When might the wins come?

The Dolphins get to play at home for two of their next three games, which is the good news. The bad news? Those are games against the Chiefs and the Bengals, a pair of 2-0 teams, and those games sandwich a trip to Minnesota to take on the 2-0 Vikings.

Miami is in a rebuild, so an 0-2 start is not entirely unexpected.

Turning this around for a playoff push, however, would be unexpected.

It was tough to watch Jayden Daniels dislocate his left elbow again in Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

Dan Quinn said the team will rally around backup Marcus Mariota, and the veteran does give Washington a fighting chance each week. But with games coming up against Seattle, Indianapolis, the Giants, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and the Rams, Daniels going down comes ahead of a rather tough stretch of games.

Maybe Washington steals a game or two, but even that would mean overcoming a 2-6 start which seems like too high of a hill to climb.

On the positive side of the ledger, the Tennessee Titans were two minutes away from knocking off the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

On the negative side of the ledger, that was enough time for Jalen Hurts to engineer a game-winning drive, as he connected with Darius Cooper on a short touchdown pass with just nine seconds left to give the Eagles a 24-20 win, dropping the Titans to 0-2.

“They executed better in critical moments,” said head coach Robert Saleh after the loss.

After an uneven start in Week 1, quarterback Cam Ward took a step forward against the Eagles, connecting on 12-of-20 passes for 183 yards, good for an Adjusted Yards per Attempt of 9.2, one of the best marks of his career. But this is still a team that looks a long way from contending for a playoff spot, even if some winnable games are coming up including a date with the Giants this week (who may be without Jaxson Dart) and a home game against Cleveland in October.

After signing a big contract extension this offseason, Baker Mayfield is off to a slow start for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He has completed 71% of his passes — which is good — but has posted an Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt of just 5.0.

That ranks him 27th in the league among qualified passers, and below league average.

The bigger concern for Tampa Bay, however, comes on the defensive side of the ball. After giving up 33 points to Joe Burrow and company in a Week 1 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, the Buccaneers gave up 23 points to Deshaun Watson in a loss to the Browns last Sunday.

With games coming up against Brian Flores and the Vikings in Week 3, the Packers in Week 4, and the Cowboys in Week 5, the Buccaneers have a lot of work to do to get back in the mix. Being in the NFC South helps — as they are only one game out of first place even sitting at 0-2 — but if that defense cannot improve in a hurry, this could be a long season in Tampa Bay.

There are plenty of reasons to put the Los Angeles Chargers lower on this.

One such reason is the little bit of history the Chargers made last Sunday, as they lost a second home game to a team that finished below .200 the prior season. That puts Los Angeles on a list where the only other entry is the Racine Tornadoes from the 1926 season.

Racine folded operations a few weeks later.

Then there is the schedule, which quite frankly puts 0-9 right on the table given how bad the Chargers have looked these past two weeks. Jim Harbaugh and company face the Bills, the Seahawks, the Broncos, the Chiefs, the Rams, the Texans, and the Ravens over the next two months. That … that is tough.

The talent is there (which keeps them high on this particular list, along with what we have seen from the other 0-2 teams) but this woeful start combined with the upcoming schedule makes it hard to believe a turnaround is coming.

It was a tough start to the season for the Indianapolis Colts, who gave up 41 points in a Week 1 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Week 2 was a little better, as the Colts went into Arrowhead Stadium and forced overtime against the Kansas City Chiefs, only to come up short when the offense got conservative at the end of their final possession, settling for a game-tying field goal and giving Patrick Mahomes a chance to get the Chiefs in position for the game-winning field goal.

Moral victories are not counted in the standings, however.

The presence of Jonathan Taylor certainly helps, and Daniel Jones has looked healthy coming back from his Achilles injury. And in the AFC South, 0-2 means you are just one game out of first place, with the Jacksonville Jaguars leading the way at 1-1. But this week is almost a de facto playoff game for the Colts, as they square off against the 0-2 Houston Texans. The loser will slip a game further back in the division, and have a loss to a rival in hand come tiebreaker time.

Resting on the coffee table in our family room is one of the latest editions of Sports Illustrated Kids. It is the magazine’s NFL Preview installment. On the cover, with the headline “Too Hot to Handle,” are five members of the Houston Texans defense.

The subheadline reads “Let ‘Em Cook: The Texans’ Defense is Climbing the Scoville Scale.”

But through two games, that defense has not been as hot as advertised. After giving up 36 points to Josh Allen and the Bills in Week 1, Houston allowed another 20 points in a Week 2 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

That makes Houston the 24th-ranked team in the league in scoring defense through two games.

Given the talent on that side of the ball, we will not panic about the defense just yet. The offensive production in Week 2, however, is worrisome. That might be more of a reflection of an improved Cincinnati defense than anything else, but the clock is ticking on C.J. Stroud and company.

A win over Indianapolis rights the ship, and gets Houston right back into the mix in the AFC South. Given the talent on both sides of the ball, that should be the start to a playoff run.

But an 0-3 start would be a much different cover story.