There's a race to the bottom of the NFL standings four games into the season, including some surprisingly winless teams.
A record-tying five teams are 0-4 one month in, marking just the seventh time that has happened in NFL history and first since 2019.
Some of the winless teams aren't too surprising, with Miami there as part of a rebuild in a season when the Dolphins are carrying a record $184 million in dead money charges on the salary cap. Tennessee
is winless after back-to-back three-win seasons.
The other winless teams are a bit more of a surprise: Tampa Bay is there after coming into the season as the favorite to win the division, while Houston and the Los Angeles Chargers are 0-4 after making the playoffs last season.
This is just the third time in NFL history that two teams started a season 0-4 after making the playoffs the previous season. It also happened in 1999 with defending conference champions Atlanta and Denver doing it, and in 1992 with the Los Angeles Raiders and New York Jets both starting 0-4.
The Buccaneers have lost four one-score games with their minus-20 point differential the fifth-best ever for an 0-4 team, and best since Minnesota was outscored by 19 points over the first four games in 2011.
The Chargers haven't been nearly as competitive, getting outscored by 39 points for the second-worst point differential in the league so far.
The start for the Texans has been frustrating as they have led in the final 2 minutes in three of the four losses, including a 34-30 loss to Dallas on Sunday when the Cowboys scored the winning touchdown with 40 seconds to play.
They are the second team since at least 1991 to lose three times in the first four games after leading in the final 2 minutes. The Chargers did it in 2016. The only other teams in the Super Bowl era to start the season 0-4 despite leading at any point in the fourth quarter in three of the games were the 2013 Bucs and 2011 Vikings.
C.J. Stroud is the first quarterback since 1950, when starts were first tracked, to lose the first four games of a season without throwing an interception.
Three teams have started the season 4-0, with Kansas City and Minnesota doing it after missing the playoffs in 2025. The last time two teams started 4-0 after missing the playoffs was 2013 when the Chiefs and New Orleans did it.
Signing away the reigning Super Bowl MVP hasn't worked so well in the past. It couldn't be going better for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kenneth Walker III has transformed Kansas City's offense since leaving Seattle in free agency in March. His 537 yards rushing are the most for any player through four games since Arian Foster had 539 yards in 2010.
Walker rushed for 177 yards and two touchdowns in a 30-27 win over Las Vegas on Sunday, making him the fourth player to have at least 175 yards from scrimmage in three of the first four games of a season. Christian McCaffrey did it in 2019, Billy Sims as a rookie for Detroit in 1980 and Jim Brown in 1963. Sims is the only other player to do it in his first four games with a franchise.
Walker already has six runs of at least 20 yards this season — doubling Kansas City's total for all of 2025.
His performance is far different from the other three Super Bowl MVPs who changed teams immediately after winning the award.
Larry Brown had one interception in 12 games over two seasons with the Raiders after winning Super Bowl MVP for Dallas following the 1995 season. Brown was suspended for conduct detrimental to the team in 1997 and then cut.
The Raiders also signed Desmond Howard in 1997 after he won the award for Green Bay. Howard caught six passes and had two punt return TDs in two seasons for Oakland.
Dexter Jackson fared better after leaving Tampa Bay for Arizona with six interceptions in 2003 but he was cut the following year.
The NFL came close to setting a record for penalties last week with the 271 accepted infractions the second most in any week in league history. The highest was 298 in Week 2 of the 2015 season.
There were an average of 16.9 penalties per game in Week 4 for the second-highest mark since 2000.
The biggest culprit was the game Sunday between the Chargers and Seattle when there were 30 accepted penalties for 280 yards, including seven personal fouls against the Seahawks. Three other games had at least 20 accepted penalties last week.
In all, the average of 15 penalties per game rank fourth highest since 2000 through four weeks and the highest since it was at 15.3 in 2015.
There have been noticeable increases this season in offensive holding, false starts and defensive holding compared to last season.
There is a large disparity between teams. Green Bay and Cleveland are both averaging more than 10 accepted penalties a game, while San Francisco and Indianapolis have had less than five.
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