We had a plan. We had projections, power rankings, and an entire offseason of film study. We were going to look like geniuses by October. Then the 2026 NFL season happened, and within just four weeks, all of that confidence got flushed down the drain. The first month of this season has been a beautiful, chaotic mess, the kind that reminds you why you fell in love with football in the first place. There are legitimate contenders walking around with zero wins and their playoff hopes already hanging by a thread. There are franchises that were written off before Labor Day now sitting at 3-1, grinning like they know something the rest of us don’t. There are superstar quarterbacks playing the worst football of their lives, while rookie running backs and first-year head coaches are making veterans look foolish. We aren’t even officially at the quarter mark of the season yet, but we’re close enough that it’s time to own up to our mistakes. That’s what this is: a confession. You know that awkward moment at a party when someone brings up a take you made months ago, and you have to look them in the eye and admit, “Yeah, well… I was wrong about that”? That’s this article in its entirety. We at FOX Sports have been humbled by the last month, and we’re here to eat our humble pie, slice by slice. Some of us picked teams to win championships and watched them crumble into 0-4 disasters. Some of us believed in quarterbacks who have completely lost their way. And some of us are lucky enough to be enjoying the sweet taste of being surprised in the best possible way. But first, let’s talk about the biggest disappointments, because that’s where the pain is most concentrated.
Start with the Los Angeles Chargers, because that’s where the heartbreak is the most raw. Ralph Vacchiano has been in love with Justin Herbert since 2019, back when Herbert was still at Oregon and NFL evaluators were drooling over that rocket arm and that calm, confident demeanor. Ralph believed Herbert had everything you could want in a franchise quarterback: the size, the talent, the intelligence, the work ethic. He spent years blaming the people around Herbert for failing to get him over the top. The coaches weren’t good enough. The offensive line wasn’t protecting him. The franchise itself was dysfunctional. This season, Ralph thought it would finally be different. Jim Harbaugh made a brilliant move by bringing in Mike McDaniel, the creative offensive mind who turned the Dolphins into an explosive juggernaut, to be the offensive coordinator. The line was supposedly fixed. The pieces were all in place. Ralph picked the Chargers to cruise to double-digit wins and maybe even sneak into the Super Bowl conversation. Instead? The Chargers are 0-4, staring at a schedule that could easily turn that into 0-9 before the season gets mercifully put out of its misery. Herbert and McDaniel look like they’re reading the same book in completely different languages. There is no rhythm, no trust, no cohesion on that offense. It’s a series of miscues, sloppy penalties, and missed opportunities. The injuries have returned with a vengeance, with four of the five projected starting offensive linemen already missing time. Herbert, who has been floundering for three straight seasons now, looks absolutely lost out there. Ralph is slowly starting to accept a painful truth that he never wanted to face: maybe Justin Herbert is the most overrated quarterback of his generation. Maybe the talent will never translate into winning football. Maybe this is just who he is. It’s a hard thing to admit when you’ve built your entire football philosophy around a guy, but that’s where we are now, and there’s no easy fix in sight.
Then there’s the Houston Texans, and Ben Arthur is still trying to process what the heck happened there. Houston was the easy Super Bowl pick for him before the season, and honestly, it made perfect sense at the time. That defense was practically unbeatable last year. They lost nobody of consequence over the offseason, and they actually got better by adding pieces like free-agent safety Reed Blakenship and second-round rookie defensive tackle Kayden McDonald. It felt like a cheat code. And C.J. Stroud? There was no way he could play as badly as he did in the playoffs last year, when he coughed up seven turnovers in just two games. Ben figured Stroud would at least be competent, the defense would keep doing its dominant thing, and Houston would have a championship formula. But here’s the bizarre part: they’ve completely flipped. Stroud has actually been fine this season, sometimes even great. The defense, on the other hand, has collapsed in spectacular fashion. Houston ranks 20th in yards allowed and 26th in points allowed through four games. They’re giving up 260 passing yards per game, which ranks 28th in the entire league. It’s genuinely baffling. How does a defense that dominant lose its edge overnight? Ben thinks they’ll eventually steady themselves, especially with head coach DeMeco Ryans taking back the defensive play-calling duties this week. But the hole they’ve dug is just too deep. The Jaguars look poised to run away with the AFC South, and the AFC is loaded with too many good teams fighting for those three wild-card spots. Ben believed in this team with his whole chest, and four weeks later, he’s just trying to figure out what went wrong. It’s a humbling reminder that in the NFL, nothing is guaranteed, no matter how good you look in August.
But let’s be honest here: being wrong isn’t always a bad thing. Greg Auman is the lucky one in this group, because he gets to talk about the teams that made him look foolish in the best possible way. The New York Giants, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Cleveland Browns are all sitting at 3-1 right now, and nobody saw that coming. Not a single soul. The Giants? John Harbaugh’s first season in New York, and somehow they’re leading a division where the Eagles are losing offensive linemen left and right and the Cowboys look like the exact same disappointing team they were last year. Jameis Winston is the quarterback, and the biggest question is whether he can play a full season without falling back into his old turnover habits, but the defensive front is legit and rookie linebacker Arvell Reese is improving every single week. Then there’s the Raiders, where Klint Kubiak, the guy who bounced around five teams in five years before finally winning a Super Bowl last season, has completely transformed the culture in Las Vegas. He’s been a nomad, really, going from Minnesota to Denver to San Francisco to Kansas City to Seattle, learning something valuable at every stop. Now he’s putting it all together with the Raiders. Tyler Linderbaum looks like a game-changer, and Nakobe Dean and Quay Walker are forming a terrifying young linebacker duo. They might not make the playoffs this year, but you can already see the trajectory heading upward. And Cleveland? Todd Monken is somehow winning games with Deshaun Watson as his quarterback, which might be the most shocking development of the entire season. Rookie receivers Denzel Boston and KC Concepcion are already making plays all over the field, and second-year defensive tackle Mason Graham had four sacks in his first three games before getting hurt. Their schedule is filled with winnable games, and while catching Baltimore might be a stretch, they could absolutely stick around in an AFC North where all four teams are at .500 or better. It’s genuinely fun when football surprises you in a good way.
Now let’s talk about the Dallas Cowboys, because Steven Ruiz made a bold bet this summer: that their defense could be average. That might sound like a low bar, but for a Cowboys fan, average is basically a Super Bowl guarantee given how bad the unit was a year ago. Steven bought into new defensive coordinator Christian Parker, a young coach the league was buzzing about, and he really believed the addition of first-round pick Caleb Downs would fix the safety position and elevate the entire pass defense. He picked Dallas to win the NFC East. Four weeks in, he’s selling his stock at a massive loss. This defense looks terrible, and it’s not even close to a well-coached unit right now. There are coverage busts everywhere. Missed tackles all over the field. Blown assignments on what feels like every drive. They’re on pace to give up the second-most rushing yards in franchise history, which is an absolutely staggering stat. That was already concerning before Thursday night, when Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving, a guy nobody fears, went for a career-high 165 rushing yards against them. The safety situation is especially broken. Caleb Downs is being used as a nickel back instead of his natural safety position, so Markquese Bell and Malik Hooker are the ones patrolling the deep parts of the field, and they’ve been a complete disaster. The entire pass defense is sinking because of it. There is some hope that Joey Porter Jr.’s arrival will push Downs back to safety and plug the biggest hole on the unit, and the division is so weak that Dallas might stumble into first place anyway without actually being good. But Steven’s original take? Dead wrong. This defense isn’t average. It’s below average. And if the Cowboys are going to make the playoffs this season, it won’t be because their defense came to play. It’ll be because everyone else in the NFC East is even worse.
And finally, we come to the Kansas City Chiefs, the team that was supposed to be in serious trouble this season. Henry McKenna is the one who got this one wrong in the most dramatic way possible. He spent the entire offseason convinced the Chiefs would miss the playoffs entirely. His reasoning was simple: Patrick Mahomes would need time to get back on the field, let alone look like one of the three best quarterbacks in the league. He didn’t think Kenneth Walker III would magically transform the Chiefs’ offensive identity. He was skeptical about Eric Bieniemy returning as offensive coordinator, figuring the team needed fresh ideas, not a reunion. And he believed the defense didn’t have enough talent, even with Steve Spagnuolo pulling the strings. That last part was especially loud, given how many defensive pieces they lost to free agency and retirement. He was wrong about literally every single thing, and he’ll happily admit it. Four games in, the Chiefs have an 89 percent chance of making the playoffs, tied for the highest in the NFL. They have the best odds of landing the AFC’s No. 1 seed. Mahomes is playing the best football he’s played in five years, looking like the dominant force he was during the dynasty’s peak. Kenneth Walker III looks like he belongs in the same conversation as elite playmakers like Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs. Bieniemy and Andy Reid have used Walker to completely revive what was a lifeless offense last season. And the defense? Spagnuolo looks just fine with the guys he’s got, including high-impact rookies like Mansoor Delane, who’s already the team’s CB1, and R Mason Thomas, who’s making plays as a rotational edge rusher. The Chiefs took a bunch of calculated risks over the offseason, and every single one has paid off. The dynasty is alive and well. So Henry is here, gladly eating his words, because it’s actually kind of beautiful to watch greatness do what greatness does. And honestly, that’s the thing about the NFL. None of us know anything. We all have our theories, our film breakdowns, our spreadsheets, our gut feelings. Then the season starts, the games get played, and the game itself has a way of humbling everyone involved. So here we are, four weeks in, ready to admit our mistakes in front of the entire world. It’s embarrassing, sure. But it’s also exactly why we love this game.
