NFL Players Who Can Still Bring Their Teams Back from the Brink

With 13 weeks left in the NFL season, teams won't throw in the towel, but recent history is damning for squads that start off the year with a losing record at this point in the season. Of the 13 teams to start 2015 off with a 1-3 record or worse, only one had a double-digit-win season.

The truth is, it's too difficult to get streaky down the stretch in the NFL, where the battle of attrition and mismatches will eventually catch up with a team. In 2015, the only two squads to net a winning record after a losing record four weeks into the regular season were the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans, who faced each other in the AFC Wild Card Round before both were booted out of the postseason.

The Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers, who faced each other in the NFC Championship Game last season, are among notable teams with 1-3 records after Week 4. For those franchises to change their fortunes, they need specific individuals to step up and command either the offensive or defensive side of the ball.

Squads that started 1-3 finished the season a combined 80-128 last year. We'll go through five teams, trying to piece together a potential narrative on how individual players could swing a squad's season—either by returning to the field, returning to their former selves or just seeing the field for the first time—as we attempt to search for the diamonds in the rough that may be the exceptions to the dismay of a 1-3 start.

Carson Palmer, QB, Arizona Cardinals

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Along with the San Diego Chargers, the Cardinals are the only other team in the NFL with a losing record and a positive point differential, as Bruce Arians' squad has outscored its opponents by the tune of 92-80 despite its 1-3 result.

After losing two home games by a combined six points, the Cardinals will have to go on the road for seven of their remaining 12 games this season. But after posting a 13-3 record last year, including an NFC Championship Game appearance, you shouldn't count the squad out just a month into the season.

The Cardinals can still make a push for a wild-card spot, even if they are two games behind the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks in the NFC West, with a head-to-head tiebreaker going in favor of the Rams after Arizona's 17-13 Week 4 loss.

When you look at the Cardinals' season totals so far, it's hard to make the case that their defense is the problem. Among teams that have played four games, Arizona ranks in the top 10 in scoring defenses, while Football Outsiders' DVOA metric (defense-adjusted value over average) claims that it has the sixth-best defense in the NFL.

Coming into this year, it would have been hard to find someone with the opinion that the team's offense would hold the squad back, with quarterback Carson Palmer leading a high-flying offense and the young, talented David Johnson emerging in the backfield, but here we are.

The key difference between when the Cardinals were "on" last year and what they are now is the performance of Palmer. Before he sustained a finger injury against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015, Palmer posted 32 touchdowns and just nine interceptions on the season. Since then, from Week 16 on through the playoffs into this regular season, Palmer has thrown just 13 touchdowns and matched that with 13 interceptions.

According to DVOA, Arizona ranks 25th among NFL offenses this season relative to the competition it has faced. It's clear: Palmer has regressed since his late-season injury last year, and with Arians' vertical offense, the franchise demands elite-level quarterback play to function.

Palmer left the Cardinals' Week 4 match with a concussion and is still in the league's concussion protocol, according to NFL.com's Jeremy Bergman. But when he returns, he needs to be the savior for his team's sputtering offense.

Arizona plays on Thursday Night Football this week, and it appears unlikely that Palmer will get the green light to play. However, when he does suit back up, he'll need to return with confidence quickly to get the Cardinals back over .500 on the season.

Ezekiel Ansah, DE, Detroit Lions

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The Detroit Lions lack a defensive identity. Without defensive end Ezekiel Ansah, the team's most notable defenders from a present talent perspective are linebacker DeAndre Levy and cornerback Darius Slay.

Levy has made four tackles over two games through the last two regular seasons after missing the majority of 2015 with a hip injury, and he's now bothered by a quad issue. Slay, a good but not elite defensive back, has yet to earn the label of being "the guy" on the Lions defense. He hasn't even registered a Pro Bowl nod, which is significant in today's era of top athletes turning down the opportunity to play in the game.

Ansah, who had a breakout season of 14.5 sacks in 2015, has missed all but one drive over the last three weeks—all losses for Detroit—with an ankle injury. The former BYU Cougar was listed as "doubtful" last week before eventually missing the team's NFC North battle with the Chicago Bears. However, there's hope that his high ankle sprain could lead to a recovery sooner rather than later, as he wasn't immediately listed as "out."

Without Ansah for most of the first month of the season, the Lions rank 32nd in pass defense, according to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric. Without him, there is no primary pass-rusher on the team, even if his backup, third-year undrafted player Kerry Hyder, has posted three sacks in his absence.

Detroit started 2015 off 0-5, then went on a 7-4 run to end the year. But in a competitive NFC North, where the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers haven't lost an out-of-division game, the team has no time to waste.

The bright side is that the Lions' point differential of negative-seven is the third-best among teams with a losing record four weeks into the season, suggesting that if a team does reverse course this season, Detroit would be high on the list of potential candidates.

No matter how good your defensive backs are, they can't cover NFL receivers for more than about four seconds on an average passing play. The Lions don't have a player who forces quarterbacks to set an internal timer in the pocket to get the ball out of their hands. That may change quickly when Ansah returns based on his second-team All-Pro performance last season.

Kawann Short, DT, Carolina Panthers

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There's an easy case to be made that no team has had a steeper drop-off this season than the Panthers. After losing the Super Bowl in February, they now enter October two games behind the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC South race, with the Falcons holding a head-to-head tiebreaker.

Along with the New Orleans Saints and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Panthers are tied at the bottom of the division with a 1-3 record. While the biggest movement from a personnel perspective between the 2015 and 2016 rosters was allowing All-Pro cornerback Josh Norman to walk and sign with the NFC East's Washington Redskins, cornerback isn't their biggest issue.

That may come as a surprise, as Carolina allowed 300 receiving yards to the Falcons' Julio Jones in Week 4, but pass defense doesn't always lean on defensive backs. The Panthers do a good job of dropping three to four defensive backs in a deep zone shell on a play-to-play basis, which is about all you can do schematically at the NFL level, but their pass rush is simply lacking.

In four games this season, Carolina's starting defensive linemen have just two sacks. To put that into perspective, 24 defenders in the NFC alone have two or more sacks on the season as individuals.

You simply cannot get away with only getting home to the quarterback once every two games with your starting defensive line as a 4-3 defense in the NFL. The Panthers haven't had strong edge defenders in this era of the franchise, but they were able to generate interior pressure last season with defensive tackles Kawann Short and Star Lotulelei.

Short, who was averaging nearly a sack a game last season during his 11-sack breakout year, has zero on the season. This is surprising considering he's in a make-or-break campaign, as his rookie contract ends this offseason. Everyone expected him to succeed this year, including the Panthers based on how they didn't put an emphasis on using immediate assets at either defensive end or cornerback.

It's time for Short to hold up his end of the bargain. Football Outsiders' DVOA metric claims that Carolina's run defense ranks seventh in the league, while its pass defense is 19th. 

With an MVP quarterback in Cam Newton and a solid run defense, the Panthers, who are just nine points away from having an even point differential, aren't far from looking like a .500 team. However, someone on the defensive line needs to step up to the plate, and there is no bigger star with his hand in the dirt than Short.

Marcus Mariota, QB, Tennessee Titans

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The Tennessee Titans can still make a playoff run. In the AFC South, nothing is settled after four weeks of play. Last year, the 9-7 Houston Texans, who started off 1-5, were able to win the division, automatically allowing them to host a playoff game in the winter.

As a combined division, the AFC South is 4-8 against non-divisional opponents this season, meaning that no one in the four-team group is truly standing out at this point. So if the Titans want to make the jump to being a potential playoff squad, what do they need to do?

They revamped their offensive line in the offseason. They added Ben Jones in free agency from the Texans, Josh Kline off waivers from New England and Jack Conklin as a first-round pick from Michigan State. All these moves have allowed for the re-emergence of running back DeMarco Murray, who in his sixth year and third franchise has seemingly found a landing spot.

The Titans defense isn't much of a liability, as it went toe-to-toe with the now-4-0 Vikings in Week 1 outside of points off of turnovers. But the passing offense, which ranks 22nd according to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, is a bit of a red flag.

When you look at Sharp Football Stats' directional passing charts, it's clear what the problem is: Quarterback Marcus Mariota has regressed week-to-week, both in deep and short passes, in terms of accuracy.

Last year, the narrative around Mariota, who was a rookie coming off of being selected second overall out of Oregon, was that he was turnover-prone as a sack-fumble liability, but now he's not executing simple passing concepts under new head coach Mike Mularkey.

It's easy to say that a quarterback's development can help a team win football games, but you don't usually see a young quarterback start the season off as a decent performer, only to drop down a notch every week for the remainder of the opening month of play.

The story of the Mularkey era will begin to unfold soon. If the Titans continue to be hindered by their ability to move the ball through the air, they will likely name their fourth head coach since the start of the 2013 regular season in-season this year, opening up a coaching search this offseason for their fifth leader post-Jeff Fisher, who kept the franchise stable—even if it wasn't contending—from 1994 to 2010.

Joey Bosa, DE, San Diego Chargers

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The Chargers have the best point differential in the league for a team with a losing record, outscoring their opponents 121-108. This shouldn't be much of a surprise. They lost an overtime game to the Chiefs in Week 1, blew the Jacksonville Jaguars out in Week 2, lost on a 63-yard touchdown to the Indianapolis Colts with 1:17 on the clock in Week 3 and lost by one point to the Saints in Week 4.

Against the Saints, the team's last six offensive snaps included three fumbles, an interception, a sack and an incompletion. Before that stretch, San Diego had been up 13 points midway through the fourth quarter, setting up the squad's fourth heartbreaking loss of the season.

While the offense setting up the Saints with costly turnovers was the story of Week 4, the Chargers still managed to lose two games earlier in the season because their own defense couldn't hold a lead. Among teams with a losing record, the Chargers' 121-point scoring total is the best in the NFL, which you can point to as saying that the offense isn't the problem.

According to ESPN Stats & Info, no team has had two epic meltdowns to the scale San Diego has had this year, which you can also probably take as a hint that its 1-3 record may not totally reflect its talent level. Nonetheless, it is in fact 1-3, and someone needs to dig it out of that hole.

Defensively, if anyone is going to step up after a month of play, it's going to be hybrid defender Joey Bosa. The 2016 draft's third overall pick, Bosa was the first non-quarterback selected, but he missed all of the live preseason snaps due to a contract dispute, which has set him back. He has still yet to play a single snap in a Chargers jersey.

Whenever Bosa is ready to play his hybrid defensive end-outside linebacker role, he could become a top-three player in San Diego's front seven immediately, only behind outside linebacker Melvin Ingram and nose tackle Brandon Mebane. If the Chargers shore up their defensive front and quarterback Philip Rivers continues to put the team on his back, the squad can still poise itself for a wild-card run in the AFC.