Dishing out the blame pie for NFL’s six 0-3 teams: Giants offense, Dolphins defense are tough to swallow

Though we are just three weeks into the NFL season, we have already learned a lot about the league and its teams, who have in turned learned a lot about themselves based on their results to date.

Some teams are 3-0. All is going well. The offense is humming. The defense is shutting down opponents. Maybe both. Maybe there’s a little bit of luck involved. But the vibes around the building are likely immaculate and the dreams are likely big.

Some teams are 2-1. More has gone right than wrong. Some mistakes have been made, but it’s nothing that can’t be corrected. You’re probably thinking about how you can make it to the playoffs. Some teams are 1-2. It’s disappointing and you’d rather be in a different position, but not all is lost because you’re only a game below .500, after all. Win next week and you’re back in the hunt.

And then some teams are 0-3. You don’t get to 0-3 without a whole lot of stuff going wrong. The offense can’t get moving or the defense can’t get stops. Maybe both. Maybe you just don’t have the talent to compete with your opponents and that’s becoming clear. Whatever the case, things are bad.

We’re here to talk about those bad teams. Today, we’re going to assign blame, on a percentage basis, to different areas of the team and the organization for the six 0-3 teams in the NFL: the New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Miami Dolphins, Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans.

Offense: 40% | Defense: 20% | Coaching: 20% | Offseason Decisions: 20%

New York’s offense has looked functional for just one of its three games, and that game was against the decrepit Cowboys defense so it doesn’t really count. Things were so bad that the Giants became the first team in the league to make a non-injury-related quarterback change, sending Russell Wilson to the bench. But that also comes back to offseason decision-making. Why was Wilson signed in the first place? The Giants had already signed a bridge starter in Jameis Winston. There was no real point to doing this. In any event, the defense has also been somewhat of a disappointment, having been lit up for over 400 yards by two of its three opponents and forced only one turnover through three games. Neither the offense nor defense looks like it has a real plan to put people in position to succeed, which comes back to coaching. 

Lack of talent: 75% | Organizational stasis: 25%

The Saints haven’t really looked yet like they are in the same class as any of their opponents, and that’s not necessarily a good sign because the three opponents they’ve faced are an okay Cardinals team, a 49ers team starting its backup quarterback and then the Seahawks, who were missing several starters from their ferocious defense. This is a franchise that has allowed its roster to get old and stale, and is finally staring down the barrel of a full-scale rebuild. This is what it looks like when your roster gets to that point: you’re not really all that competitive in any of your games because you simply can’t compete with teams whose talent level is a significant step above where yours is. This is likely what we’re going to see out of the Saints all year. And honestly, that’s fine. They need a top pick to restock the roster.

Inability to get timely stops: 40% | Lack of offensive options: 35% | Turnovers: 25% 

Outside of Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall, there just isn’t a lot in the cupboard to help the Jets move the ball down the field. Wilson has been balling out but nobody else on the team has more than 78 yards receiving through three games. And even Hall has only a 39.5% rushing success rate. Justin Fields looked good in Week 1 and Tyrod Taylor did an admirable job in Week 3, but it’s tough sledding without the type of weaponry you need to move the ball. It’s especially tough when you give the ball away four times in three games. When you’re undermanned on that side of the ball, you just can’t afford those mistakes. That said, the Jets could easily be 2-1 if their defense could have gotten one stop against the Steelers or Buccaneers in a big spot. They didn’t come through and so they lost both of those games when they could’ve won.

Defense: 75% | Offense: 10% | Awful vibes all around: 10% | Injuries: 5% 

Miami simply cannot stop anybody from moving the ball or putting it in the end zone, and cannot take it away from the other team, either. Some of that is due to various injuries in the secondary, but it is bad stuff. The Dolphins rank 26th in yards allowed and 32nd in points allowed. They’ve given up 31 or more points to all three of their opponents. They have forced zero turnovers. Opponents are averaging the most yards and points per drive in the league and have scored on an utterly preposterous 68% of their possessions. The defense has been so bad that it’s overshadowed the offense looking largely like a shell of the unit that took the league by storm a few years ago. The last two games have been better than the disastrous opener but the high-flying, explosive version of this team is gone. The vibes have been rancid since at least training camp, and that’s shown up for this team on the field.

Offensive line: 40% | Turnovers: 40% | Lack of skill talent: 20% | Schedule: 10%

Are we really doing this again with Houston’s offensive line? It feels like we’re watching the same movie as last year. And it turns out, when you swap out almost the entire line but don’t actually invest real resources in replacing the guys you’re moving on from, things don’t actually get much better. As a result, C.J. Stroud is under constant pressure, and he looks jittery in the pocket. The run game cannot come close to getting untracked except when the Bucs are letting Nick Chubb score late in the game. The receivers outside of Nico Collins don’t come close to getting open, so there’s nowhere to go with the ball even on the rare occasions where Stroud does have time to throw. That’s all resulted in some pretty bad turnovers. The Texans had the misfortune of playing the Rams and Bucs in the first three weeks, but that’s just the lack of the draw. 

Offensive line: 25% | Coaching: 25% | Schedule: 25% | Lack of talent: 25%

Speaking of remade offensive lines that have not worked out, it’s the Tennessee Titans! They are going to get Cam Ward killed out there. Dan Moore has been a turnstile, while JC Latham and Kevin Zeitler have both missed time. It’s not been pretty. Brian Callahan apparently does not know that an elbow equals two feet when it comes to the catch rule. He has directly cost his team 10 points at the end of halves (seven against Denver and three against Indianapolis) with poor clock management. He is wildly conservative in his decision-making. Some of that is probably due to the tough schedule (Broncos, Rams, Colts) and maybe some of it is due to his under-talented team, but he has consistently put them behind the eight-ball. He’s giving up play-calling now, so maybe things will change going forward.