If the Chiefs fall to 0-3, it may be time for playoff panic

The new NFL season is only 17 days old, but for nearly a third of the league, it may already be time to playoff panic

The new NFL season is only 17 days old, but for nearly a third of the league, it may already be time to playoff panic.

That’s the predicament facing the 10 remaining winless teams entering Week 3 — because NFL history suggests that starting 0-3 means your playoff ambitions might as well be, well, history.

The Miami Dolphins are already 0-3 following a loss Thursday. Either the 0-2 Kansas City Chiefs or the 0-2 New York Giants, who face each other in prime time Sunday, are all but guaranteed to join them. The ranks of the league’s winless also include the New York Jets, the Cleveland Browns, the Houston Texans, the Tennessee Titans, the Chicago Bears, the New Orleans Saints and the Carolina Panthers.

That’s a problem for any of those teams harboring playoff ambitions, because in NFL history, only six teams have ever lost their first three games and still made the postseason, according to NBC Sports research:

Last season, Cincinnati came close to becoming only the second team this century to pull off such a comeback after having started 0-3, and 1-4, only to remain in playoff contention until the final week. Yet not even having the NFL leader in passing yards and touchdowns (Joe Burrow) and the only receiver in NFL history to record at least 100 catches, 1,700 yards and 17 touchdowns (Ja’Marr Chase) could push the Bengals into the postseason in the end.