Three winners, three losers from a wild NFL Week 4

Four weeks into an NFL season, excuses start running out.

Week 4 gave several struggling quarterbacks and teams exactly the kind of performance they desperately needed. For others, what looked like a rough start is beginning to resemble something much harder to fix.

Here are three winners and three losers whose outlooks changed significantly Sunday.

Winner: Drake Maye

Drake Maye needed this one.

The New England Patriots quarterback entered Week 4 facing questions after an uneven start to the season. Then he walked into Buffalo and helped hand the Bills their first loss.

Maye threw for 269 yards and three touchdowns in New England's 29-26 victory, including the late go-ahead score. The Patriots improved to 2-2, but the record almost feels secondary here.

Maye looked like the quarterback New England thought it had entering the season.

One game won't erase everything that happened during September. Beating Buffalo on the road buys him something every struggling quarterback desperately wants: breathing room.

Winner: Bryce Young

Bryce Young didn't merely beat the Detroit Lions. He did it on "Sunday Night Football" with everyone watching.

Young completed 29-of-41 passes for 329 yards and two touchdowns as Carolina stunned Detroit, 32-26. He didn't turn the ball over and opened the game with 11 consecutive completions.

Suddenly, Carolina is 2-2.

More importantly, Young now has 1,268 passing yards, nine touchdowns and only two interceptions through four games. Those nine touchdown passes are already a Panthers franchise record through the first four games of a season.

The conversation around Young isn't about whether Carolina needs another quarterback anymore.

It's becoming about how good he might actually be.

Winner: Liam Coen

Jacksonville's 22-17 win over Cincinnati wasn't particularly pretty.

Nobody in Jacksonville should care.

The Jaguars are 3-1 after winning on the road against Joe Burrow and the Bengals. Trevor Lawrence didn't need to match Burrow's 428 passing yards. Jacksonville simply found a way to leave Cincinnati with another win.

That's becoming a theme under Liam Coen.

There were plenty of questions about Jacksonville entering the season. Four weeks later, the Jaguars have positioned themselves as one of the AFC's more interesting early-season teams.

Loser: Nick Sirianni

The Philadelphia Eagles have officially moved beyond the point where their offensive problems can be dismissed as a bad afternoon.

Philadelphia led the Los Angeles Rams 20-10 at halftime Sunday. It lost 24-20.

Even uglier, the Eagles went 0-for-12 on third down and finished with only 172 total yards. Philadelphia has now lost two straight after opening the season 2-0.

Injuries didn't help. Neither did the weather.

Eventually, though, the excuses become part of the problem.

Sirianni already took responsibility for one costly decision Sunday. If this offense continues sputtering, he'll be answering much bigger questions soon.

Loser: Houston Texans

C.J. Stroud threw for 347 yards and two touchdowns Sunday.

Houston scored 30 points.

The Texans still lost.

Dallas erased a 10-point halftime deficit and escaped with a 34-30 victory, dropping Houston to 0-4.

That's what makes this loss especially damaging. Houston finally got plenty from its offense and still couldn't finish.

The Texans are allowing 27.3 points per game, and nearly 15 of those points are coming in the second half.

At 0-4, this isn't a slow start anymore. Houston is quickly running out of season.

Loser: Chargers' Herbert-McDaniel experiment

This was supposed to be the combination that unlocked Justin Herbert.

Instead, the Los Angeles Chargers are 0-4.

Herbert threw two more interceptions in Sunday's 30-23 loss to Seattle and now has six through four games. Mike McDaniel is already facing questions about his job security, forcing Jim Harbaugh to publicly defend his offensive coordinator.

There is plenty of blame to go around, particularly along an offensive line that has made Herbert's job considerably harder.

Still, nobody envisioned this.

The Chargers didn't pair Herbert with McDaniel hoping to patiently wait for things to click. They expected one of the NFL's most talented quarterbacks to take another step.

Four games later, Los Angeles is still waiting for its first win.