Things just keep getting more and more curious this NFL season.

The Baltimore Ravens, seemingly destined to fall to 0-3, rise up and knock off the previously unbeaten Denver Broncos on Monday Night Football. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Rams -- thought to be headed back to the Super Bowl for the third time in four seasons -- are a stunning 0-4.

"I've seen some strange things happen in this league, but nothing like this," Rams safety Kim Herring said. "With all this talent in here, we're 0-4? It just doesn't make sense. I've heard people saying that we're the best 0-3 team in the NFL. So now we're the best 0-4 team? What is that?

"It's almost like last year when people were saying, 'Oh, New England is 11-5, but they're really not that good.' You know what? Right now, I'd love to be a bad 11-5 instead of a great 0-4."

	Pennington will try to resurrect the Jets offense.

Ditto for the 1-3 New York Jets, 0-4 Minnesota Vikings and 0-4 Cincinnati Bengals. After New York won its opener against the Buffalo Bills in overtime, the Jets, Rams, Vikings and Bengals are a collective doh! and 15.

And while they may seek solace in the performance of the 2001 Patriots, who started 1-3 before finding an equilibrium and going on to win the Super Bowl, this Unfabulous Four is done. As in break out the utensils, stick a fork in them.

All four teams share some common traits that have doomed them, beginning with history. The Jets are in the midst of a slump worse than anything they've seen in 40 years -- back when they were known as the laughable Titans. It's the Rams' worst start since 1963 and the Vikings' worst since 1967, Bud Grant's first season. The Bengals? This is familiar territory for them; they've started 0-4 three times in the last four seasons, six in the last 12.

It's the oldest cliché in the coaching handbook, but turnovers do kill. Minnesota leads the league with a minus-10 turnover net. The Rams are next, tied with Pittsburgh, at minus-7. Then come the Jets at minus-6, followed by the Bengals, who are tied with Washington at minus-5. That's four of the worst six turnover nets in the league. Coincidence? We think not.

Points, as it turns out, come in handy when trying to win football games. These teams are struggling in that department. The Jets have been outscored 102-13 in their last three games. The Bengals have been outscored 119-23 in four games. The Rams' vaunted offense has produced all of 61 points in four games -- less than half of the 34 per game they racked up in 2000. The Vikings have allowed a league-high 141 points, which mitigates a passable (no pun intended) 99 points worth of offense.

All four teams have been visited by turmoil, too.

The Bengals, who have scored one offensive touchdown, are working on their third quarterback in four games and just replaced Akili Smith with Jon Kitna for Sunday's matchup with the Colts. The Vikings … well, when the Minneapolis road-traffic control spokesperson is getting more SportsCenter airtime than head coach Mike Tice, something is very, very wrong. The Jets' Herman Edwards says he isn't panicking, but he's replacing Vinny Testaverde with Chad Pennington this Sunday against Kansas City. In St. Louis, the Rams have lost MVP quarterback Kurt Warner for eight to 10 weeks. How many of you have Jamie Martin as your fantasy quarterback?

Martin will start the second game of his career Sunday at San Francisco. Forgive him if he's a little distracted. His wife, Kelly, gave birth to their second child Monday morning. The Rams are hoping he, too, will deliver.

A more specific accounting of what has gone wrong:

Layover in New York
Believe it or not, there were people in New York who harbored aspirations of the Super Bowl. Some of them worked in the Jets' Hempstead, Long Island training complex. A 4-0 preseason seemed to confirm this general feeling.

But now, as running back Curtis Martin observed after the Jets were humbled at Jacksonville, "We are a ship sinking right now."

There were signs in the opener that something wasn't quite right. Buffalo dominated the Jets at the line of scrimmage, but two Chad Morton kick returns for touchdowns got New York off to a 1-0 start. And then the Patriots (44-7) and Dolphins (30-3) proved in back-to-back games that the Jets weren't capable of contending for the AFC East title. The Jags offered evidence that the Jets may not challenge .500. The remaining schedule, Minnesota and Detroit aside, is brutal.

What's the problem on offense? First of all, Martin has been bothered by an ankle sprain, which has limited him to 32 carries and 98 yards -- a good game in his prime. Testaverde, who will turn 39 next month, has been spotty, throwing as many interceptions (three) as touchdowns. The offensive line, anchored by center Kevin Mawae and his new mega-contract, has been terrible.

	Takeaway/giveaways in 2002
	Rank	Team	Plus/minus
	32.	Minnesota	-10
	T30.	St. Louis	-7
	T30.	Pitsburgh	-7
	29.	NY Jets	-6
	T27.	Cincy	-5
	T27	Washington	-5

Against Jacksonville, four turnovers led directly to 21 points by the Jaguars.

Although Testaverde's bruised shoulder would still permit him to play, Pennington will make his first NFL start Sunday against Kansas City -- the first indication that Edwards has conceded the season. Even with Testaverde, offensive coordinator Paul Hackett has been unable to get the vertical passing game going with wideouts Wayne Chrebet, Laveranues Coles and Santana Moss.

The defense hasn't been much better. The tackling, in particular, has been miserable. The Jets have allowed 739 yards rushing in four games.

"Guys have to check themselves," said guard Randy Thomas after Sunday's loss. "If you know you're (screwing) up, take credit for it and pick it up. This is ridiculous. I have to get better. The line has to get better. The team has to win. I'm not going to be the laughingstock of the NFL."

Oh, really? It's already too late.

Ram Not-So-Tough
It's not like Warner was having another MVP season when Dallas safety Roy Williams dropped him to the artificial turf on Sunday, causing two breaks in the pinkie on his throwing hand.

Warner had thrown seven interceptions and only one touchdown pass, despite completing 70 percent of his passes. His passer rating of 66.4 is 14th in the NFC and 25th in the NFL.

And now the Rams must continue with Martin, who was a credible 24-for-37 for 262 yards, with one touchdown and one interception, in relief of Warner.

"He had an awful lot of success for a guy who hasn't done any of this stuff," said head coach Mike Martz. "There were some plays that he completed that he had never thrown before."

A lovely sentiment, but the 49ers -- who are not 12-point underdogs as the Cowboys were -- will bring the heat on Sunday.

A lot of the blame for Warner's bad numbers has been placed on his thumb and its questionable health. And while some of his passes have fluttered, his receivers have not been getting open like they did the last several years. At least three of those seven interceptions were not necessarily Warner's fault.

There are those who point to Martz himself as part of the problem.

	“	I've seen some strange things happen in this league, but nothing like this. With all this talent in here, we're 0-4? It just doesn't make sense. I've heard people saying that we're the best 0-3 team in the NFL. So now we're the best 0-4 team? What is that? ”
		— Rams safety Kim Herring

Bryan Burwell, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, pointed to a play with 1:40 left in the game with Dallas. With the score 10-all, the Rams were sitting at the Cowboys' 25-yard line, looking at a third-and-3. To that point, Martz had employed a maximum protection scheme for his inexperienced quarterback. But on this play he got greedy. Instead of having Martin hand off to the reliable, often spectacular Marshall Faulk, Martz called for a pass to tight end Ernie Conwell. He was open, but Martin couldn't get the ball there because tight end Brandon Manumaleuna couldn't block two men at once. Martin was sacked for a loss of six yards and Jeff Wilkins' 49-yard field-goal attempt came up a few feet short.

"These are no longer those high-powered Super Bowl Rams," Burwell wrote. "This is a stripped-down version of that offense, and for most of the game, Martz seemed to acknowledge that with a simplified version of the offense that emphasized running and maximum pass protection.

"Yet, when it mattered most, he went back to the same damn-the-torpedoes attitude that used to make him look like a genius, but now only makes him look stubborn."

Another hit and run
By now, anything that wide receiver Randy Moss does fails to surprise. But what to make of Vikings owner Red McCombs? While appearing on KFAN-AM's live broadcast of Sunday night's game at Seattle, McCombs ripped off his headset, slammed it down and stormed out of the booth. He was not flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct, but center Matt Birk -- ordinarily a model citizen -- was and it cost the Vikings as they attempted to mount a third-quarter comeback in a 48-23 loss to the Seahawks.

The defense has been appalling. Running back Shaun Alexander scored an NFL-record five touchdowns in the first half. The Seahawks, who entered the game with a total of 36 points in three games, scored 28 in a span of 107 seconds.

"When you sign on for this job, you come to work and expect something to go wrong every day," Tice said on Monday. "Then you can better deal with it. I think we've had a lot of things happen in succession. At one point I would like to take a breath, but that's not the deal. The deal is we're 0-4, we've had some tragedies, we've had some incidents, we've had some poor play and we've just got to be more consistent."

Or less. Consistently bad, that is.

There was a pall hanging over Minnesota after Moss was arrested for allegedly bumping a traffic agent in downtown Minneapolis. He caught six passes for 50 yards against Seattle but was not a factor. Or maybe he was; he dropped four passes in the end zone.

"The balls touched my hands," Moss said. "I really don't have a word. The balls came off my fingertips. They bounced off my chest. I think the more I dropped, the more I got down in myself."

The good news amongst the bad? The Vikings are off this week and the next two games are against Detroit and the Jets. Someone will have to win that Oct. 20 tilt at New York. Maybe not. The way these teams are going it will be a scoreless tie.

Bungling in the Jungle
There has been a remarkable consistency in the Bengals' four losses: It was San Diego 34-6 in the opener, then Cleveland 20-6, Atlanta by 30-3 and, finally, Tampa Bay 35-7. That, math fans, works out to an appalling average of 30-6.

"I don't know if it's the all-time low," said Bengals linebacker Takeo Spikes after the loss to the Buccaneers, "but it's not too far from it.

"It's because of the high expectations. If I was a gambler and was in Las Vegas, I would have put everything I had on the Bengals."

And that, Mr. Spikes, is why we have professional gamblers. They succeed by studying history and trends. And even if there was guarded optimism in Cincinnati before the season -- why couldn't they jump up from a 6-10 record a year ago and become respectable? -- the track record suggests otherwise. Spikes, for the record, has lost 51 of the 68 games in his tenure in Cincinnati.

Things have gotten so dicey that head coach Dick LeBeau called on Akili Smith against Tampa Bay. His third quarterback of the season failed to produce a single offensive point. Gus Frerotte (one touchdown, five interceptions), Jon Kitna (0 TD, 1 INT) and Smith (0 TD, 1 INT) have all been miserable. Running back Corey Dillon (70 carries, 243 yards) has been effective, but when you're behind early and often, running doesn't make much sense.

The real problem here is an institutional one. In 11 seasons with president Mike Brown as the de facto GM, the Bengals are 53-127 with no playoff appearances. The offensive outage is nothing new; going back to the start of the 2002 season, the Bengals have scored seven or fewer points in a remarkable 17 of 36 games.

After the loss to Tampa Bay, Smith was grasping for answers. He was the 1999 first-round pick -- ahead of Edgerrin James, Ricky Williams, Torry Holt, David Boston, Daunte Culpepper and Jevon Kearse -- but he has played sparingly since starting 11 of 12 games in 2000.

"We've been losing bad for four years now," said Smith. "I'm constantly trying to figure out what the heck is going on. We put in good game plans every week and every week it seems like something happens and we lose."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.