The Saints aren’t just marching in; they’re singing and dancing as they make their way through the NFL’s unbeaten club just two weeks into the season.
New Orleans, which put together scoring drives on its first 15 touches of the season, has an NFL-best plus-62 point differential and quarterback Derek Carr leads with the theme of castaway quarterbacks who have more former teams than career playoff victories.
Eight other teams are unbeaten—but there’s a difference between being 2–0 with expectations and having a record of 2 and uh, oh!
Here’s how they stack up:
The defending Super Bowl champions are getting by, despite a somewhat sluggish start. They come with a ton of expectations and a boatload of talent—quarterback Patrick Mahomes leading the way with his flair and slick plays. But the Chiefs got off on the right foot—barely—by beating the Baltimore Ravens by a toenail 27-20 in Week 1.
They survived a Cincinnati Bengals challenge, which required a late Mahomes-led drive and a 51-yeard Harrison Butker walk-off field goal to clinch it. They don’t look like a fine-tuned unit yet, but they’re the champs.
A hot pick for the Super Bowl, the second-year duo of coach DeMeco Ryans and QB C.J. Stroud outlasted the Indianapolis Colts in Week 1, and edged the Chicago Bears the following week. The Vikings will be a great challenge and a litmus test for the Texans, who still have to battle for credibility and respect in the same state as the Dallas Cowboys.
Quarterback Sam Darnold, who came out of USC with acclaim, high hopes and potential, had honestly been considered a bust. But he’s looking like a competent signal-caller now—among the NFL’s top 10—and the defense did enough to impress in Week 2’s takedown of the San Francisco 49ers, losers of the Super Bowl in February.
These Vikings, though, still have a lot to conquer.
Another team with an exiled quarterback in Baker Mayfield, the Bucs pulled off a Week 2 surprise in Detroit, taking down the Lions behind their signal-caller, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft. Mayfield, who plays like a swashbuckling pirate at times, is at the back end of the top 10 passers, but observers want to see more.
Many are on the fence on this team and it’s getting crowded. And Week 3’s matchup against the franchise that drafted Mayfield, the Cleveland Browns, probably won’t tell us much—unless their ship sinks.
Quarterback Geno Smith said he was written off and he didn’t write back after he broke out in the 2022 season. He is No. 6 in passing, so he doesn’t have to shop for stationery yet. But victories over the Denver Broncos and their rookie QB and the New England Patriots and their stale signal-caller aren’t anything to write home about.
Seattle’s schedule the next handful of weeks isn’t all that impressive, thanks in part to opponents’ injuries, so Smith might not need a pen and paper for a while.
First-year coach Jim Harbaugh, fresh off his national championship with the Michigan Wolverines, is back with that underdog attitude and the organizational skills to put a charge in a franchise that has seemed to be unplugged for decades.
Running back J.K. Dobbins has juiced up the ground game by leading the NFL in rushing, and the Chargers are an impressive plus-35 in point differential. That’s great for a club that looked switched off during a 5-12 season in 2023.
A great defensive player in edge rusher T.J. Watt, a winning coach, two iffy quarterbacks—one with a bad wheel—and a schedule that has some soft spots in it can make lipstick on a pig look good … if the angle and lighting aren’t right.
Castoff Justin Fields is the man under center for now because Russell Wilson has a calf issue. Watt has been tormenting offenses already, and he could have better stats if not for penalties that snuffed out some of his production.
The victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1 was a defensive triumph, and the Week 2 FG-fest that edged the Broncos was a BYOP (bring your own pillow) event. The Steelers face the Chargers on Sunday, so at least one “2 and oh” team will drop off the unbeaten list.
There are also nine winless NFL teams, and that list includes Super Bowl hopeful Baltimore, which lost in the conference championship last season. The Ravens lost in Week 1 to the abovementioned Chiefs, and they’re coming off a Week 2 surprise fourth-quarter stumble against the Las Vegas Raiders. Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, a two-time league MVP, lost weight in the offseason with an eye to making more gains as a runner. It sounds counterintuitive to many, and it hasn’t translated to wins.
Meanwhile, the injury bug brought its entire family and everybody eats when it comes to the Los Angeles Rams. The list of players on injured reserve is too long to document here, but coach Sean McVay and his assistants are going to be tested in ways not many teams have had to experience.
Cooper Kupp was the latest addition to what is becoming a trail of bodies leading up to the facility for a team that had high hopes. The wide receiver suffered an ankle injury in Sunday’s game, although he will avoid the IR list.
The Cincinnati Bengals were also a club that had expectations, talent, and potential. Back-to-back losses to open the season have put a limp in Cincy’s stroll, but they’re still talented.
The Carolina Panthers have gone out of the frying pan and into the dumpster fire. The drafting of Bryce Young at quarterback might not be the biggest mistake. Panthers brass made an even bigger blunder by bringing Andy Dalton to be the fallback answer for a young, undersized, and inexperienced signal-caller, whom they’ve benched.
The New York Giants, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Broncos, and Colts haven’t generated high expectations, so not many are crying over spilled milk outside of those facilities.
