It’s still early, but the NFL has already handed out a mess of 0-3 starts, and not all of them feel the same. A few of these teams look stuck in the mud.
A couple still have a pulse. And one of them has already shown it can dig out of this exact hole.
Only 7 teams in NFL history have turned an 0-3 start into a playoff berth, including the 2025 Houston Texans. That makes the climb clear enough: possible, yes, but brutal. As October arrives, five teams are still chasing their first win, and here’s how they stack up from worst to best.
- Miami Dolphins
The Dolphins were already headed for a season of searching for answers and building blocks. Now they’ve lost De’Von Achane for the year after a torn ACL, which only makes the picture darker.
That’s the harsh part of a season like this: if you’re in evaluation mode, you want your core pieces on the field together. Instead, Miami is losing one of the players it could have leaned on as it tries to figure out what comes next.
Still, there have been flashes. Against the Chiefs on Sunday, the Dolphins showed glimpses of what Jeff Hafley is trying to build. They may be the league’s weakest team right now, but the foundation isn’t completely invisible.
- Tennessee Titans
The Titans were one of the more intriguing long-shot teams entering the year, at least on paper. The thinking was simple: the defensive-front additions under head coach Robert Saleh could make a real difference, and Cam Ward might take a leap in his second NFL season.
So far, Tennessee has been competitive. The problem is that the details keep slipping away. The execution just isn’t there yet.
That doesn’t mean the Titans are dead in the water. A run is still possible if Ward gets hot. But right now, this looks more like a team drifting toward another high draft pick in 2027 than one ready to turn the corner.
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Buccaneers are starting to look like a team headed toward a reset.
Baker Mayfield was paid like a franchise quarterback, but he hasn’t played at that level, and now he’s dealing with an injury on top of everything else.
This has been building for a while. Tampa Bay has underachieved for more than a year, including last season when it couldn’t win the NFC South even though the Panthers claimed the division with just 8 wins. For all the talent that’s been on the roster, the Bucs have looked more like a team pretending to contend than one actually built to do it.
At this point, a major coaching change after the season feels like a real possibility.
- Los Angeles Chargers
The Chargers have somehow managed to make life harder than expected without even facing the toughest schedule yet.
They opened with back-to-back losses to the Cardinals and Raiders, two stunners considering both opponents were led by rookie head coaches. Then came the question of whether they’d really drop a third straight game to another rookie head coach while visiting the Bills in Week 3.
Jim Harbaugh and his team are at the point where the soul-searching has to start. And there’s no time to linger on it, because the road doesn’t get any easier with a brutal matchup against the Seahawks in Week 3.
- Houston Texans
The Texans have been here before, and that matters.
The 2025 Houston team started 0-3, fell to 3-5 by the midpoint of the season, and then ripped off 10 straight wins, capped by a playoff victory over the Steelers. That run is the proof of concept. It also stands as the exception.
Houston has the kind of defense that can keep it alive, but the offense has to do more. There are also longer-term questions hanging over the roster, with C.J. Stroud’s contract status still unresolved.
And the division isn’t going to slow down for them. The Jaguars look like one of the league’s best teams this season, and the Colts are not fading away quietly, as Houston learned on Sunday.
The Texans may be the strongest of the winless bunch, but the next four games before the bye are huge. Matchups with the Cowboys, Titans, Jaguars and Giants could put them at 3-4 or better by the end of October.
In Other News...
Cam Ward Just Gave Titans Fans A Brutal Reason To Worry
Cam Wards first rough afternoon as the Titans starting quarterback turned into a bigger conversation after Tennessees Week 3 loss to the Giants. The stat line was only part of the problem. Wards decision-making came under heavy criticism, and the late interception became the kind of mistake that tends to linger long after the final whistle in a market already looking for signs of progress.
The Titans are still sticking with Ward for now, but the performance added another layer of pressure to his early stretch as the starter. For a team trying to establish some stability at quarterback, every turnover and every shaky sequence matters, and this one left plenty of questions about where the job stands moving forward. [Read more 🡒]
Titans Get An Unexpected Spot In A Halloween NFL Crossover
The Titans have found their way into an unexpected Halloween crossover, thanks to a new SNICKERS and adidas collaboration built around candy, cleats and a little seasonal flair. The limited-edition launch includes SNICKERS x adidas candy bars and the ADIZERO ELECTRIC + II, a football cleat with a Halloween theme and performance technology, giving the partnership a lane that reaches beyond the usual offseason promo and into the kind of crossover marketing that tends to grab attention.
Carnell Tate played a part in bringing the collaboration to life, giving Tennessee a direct link to a campaign that starts rolling out in phases. The candy bars arrive on Sept. 29, the cleats follow on Oct. 10, and SNICKERS will run a giveaway on Instagram from Oct. 12-16, so anyone following the release still has a few moving pieces to track as the Halloween push builds. [Read more 🡒]
Titans Already Have An Uncomfortable Cam Ward Question
Cam Wards first stretch as the Titans franchise quarterback has not given the team much comfort. Since going first overall in the 2025 NFL Draft, he has battled through a rough opening run that has left him near the bottom of several passing categories, and the backdrop around him has not made the job easier. Tennessee has been working with an inexperienced receiving group, while the coaching situation has not offered much stability for a young passer trying to find his footing.
Still, the longer this goes on, the harder it becomes to separate Wards development from the organizations future planning. Sports Illustrateds Albert Breer raised the possibility that if the losses keep piling up, Tennessee could eventually be looking at quarterback again in the 2027 NFL Draft, which is the kind of conversation no team wants to be having this early with a player taken first overall. Any move in that direction would say as much about how the Titans have handled the position around Ward as it would about Ward himself. [Read more 🡒]