NFL teams only need to look back a
year to see how little a Week 1 loss might mean
[September 16, 2026]
By JOSH DUBOW
With a nearly seven-month wait since the Super Bowl for meaningful
NFL games, it's only natural for Week 1 to fuel some overreactions.
What happened last season was the latest example of why that might
not be wise.
The Seattle Seahawks won the title against the New England Patriots
in February in the only Super Bowl matchup ever played between two
teams that started the season with a loss. Seattle lost to division
rival San Francisco but got revenge in a blowout win in the
playoffs. The Patriots shockingly lost at home to the Las Vegas
Raiders, who won just two more games the entire season and wound up
with the No. 1 overall draft pick.
That should be good news for the Los Angeles Rams, who came into the
season as heavy Super Bowl favorites only to lose their opener 27-7
to San Francisco in Australia last week in their lowest-scoring game
with MVP Matthew Stafford at quarterback.
In all, five teams made the playoffs last season after losing in
Week 1, with Chicago, Houston and Carolina joining Seattle and New
England in the postseason. Nearly half of last year's Week 1 winners
seven of 16 missed the playoffs, with Arizona, Cincinnati and
Washington all winning six games or fewer for the entire season.
Since the playoffs expanded to seven teams per conference in 2020,
an average of 4.3 teams per season have lost in Week 1 but made the
playoffs; and 6.2 teams per season have won in Week 1 and missed the
postseason.
But the Rams won't be satisfied with just a playoff bid. After
adding Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie to a team that fell just
short last season, they entered this one with plus-500 odds to win
it all.
Just 12 of the 60 Super Bowl champions lost their season opener but
the Seahawks were the third to do it in the past six seasons,
joining Tampa Bay in 2020 and Kansas City in 2023.
But doing it after such a lopsided Week 1 loss would be unusual.
Only one eventual champion, New England, lost the opener by at least
20 points. The Patriots lost 31-0 in Week 1 to Buffalo in 2003
before winning 34 of 37 games the rest of 2003 and '04 to win
back-to-back titles.
New York teams get off to rare winning start
The New York City area has been at the bottom of the NFL over the
past decade, with the New York Jets having the league's worst record
since 2016 and the Giants ranking second-worst.
That's what made the start of this season so surprising. The Jets
beat Tennessee 23-10 on Sunday afternoon and the Giants upset Dallas
28-20 on Sunday night. That marked the first time both those teams
won in Week 1 since 2009. Both had lost the opener in five of the
last seven years.
With both teams taking a 1-0 record into Week 2, this is just the
second season since the start of 2016 that both the Jets and Giants
had winning records at the same time. It also happened for a 10-week
stretch in 2022, ending after the Jets lost in Week 15 to fall to
7-7 on the way to a 7-10 finish.
There have only been five times that both teams made the playoffs in
the same season. It happened in 2006, 2002, 1986, 1985 and 1981.
New coaches get off to a winning start
Coach John Harbaugh won his debut with the Giants as part of a
winning weekend overall for the record-tying 10 new head coaches.
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Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford (9) leaves the field
after a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL football game in
Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Doug Benc)
Six of the 10 opened with victories, including two
in head-to-head matchups, with Mike McCarthy's Pittsburgh Steelers
beating Kevin Stefanski's Atlanta Falcons, and Klint Kubiak's Las
Vegas Raiders beating Jeff Hafley's Miami Dolphins.
The other winners were Arizona's Mike LaFleur against the Los
Angeles Chargers, Baltimore's Jesse Minter against Indianapolis, and
Buffalo's Joe Brady beating Houston.
The other two losing coaches were Tennessee's Robert Saleh against
the Jets and Cleveland's Todd Monken against Jacksonville.
Rough start for the NFC South
One season after Carolina won the division and became the fifth team
to make the playoffs with a losing record in a non-strike season,
the NFC South got off to a rough start in 2026.
The Panthers lost 59-37 to Chicago and their three division rivals
also lost. Tampa Bay fell 33-27 to Cincinnati, New Orleans lost
31-30 to Detroit in overtime and Atlanta fell 20-13 to Pittsburgh.
This marked just the eighth time since the merger that every team in
one division lost in Week 1. That last happened with the NFC North
in 2021.
The offenses weren't the issue. Three of the teams topped 30 points
and had 107 combined points, the most in any week for a division
without a single win, topping the 100 for the NFC North teams in
Week 2 of the 2023 season.
Odds and ends
Here are a few other statistical standouts from Week 1:
The Philadelphia Eagles won their sixth straight opener as Nick
Sirianni became the only coach in NFL history to appear in at least
six openers and win them all. Thats the longest active winning
streak in Week 1. The last team to have a longer streak was Kansas
City with eight straight from 2015-22.
Carson Wentz replaced an injured Kyler Murray to throw three TD
passes and no interceptions in a 39-22 win for Minnesota over Green
Bay. The only other QB to come off the bench in an opener and throw
at least three TDs and no INTs since starts were first tracked in
1950 was Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, who did it in the first game
in Vikings history in 1961 against Chicago.
Pittsburgh's T.J. Watt had two sacks and a pick-6 in a win over
Atlanta. Watt now has 117 sacks and 10 interceptions in his career,
joining Hall of Famer Julius Peppers as the only players with at
least 100 sacks and 10 INTs.
Bijan Robinson was nearly the entire offense for the Falcons with
83 yards rushing, 90 yards receiving and the team's only TD in the
loss to the Steelers. Robinson had 65.8% of the offense for the
Falcons and 10 of the team's 19 targets in the passing game. The
last running back who had at least half of his team's targets was
LaDainian Tomlinson with 15 of 28 for the Chargers in Week 17 of the
2003 season against the Raiders.
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