There are lists in sports that you do not want to be on, as a player or as a team.

Take, for example, the Los Angeles Chargers. With the Chargers’ loss to the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, Los Angeles dropped to 0-2 on the season. Many teams start 0-2, and some of those even make the playoffs. Last year alone the Houston Texans, the Chicago Bears, and the Carolina Panthers started 0-2 and still made the playoffs.

But what put the Chargers on a very, very small list is the context around those two losses. Both came at home, against a team that finished with a winning percentage under .200 the prior year. Only the Chargers, and the 1926 Racine Tornadoes, pulled that off.

And those 1926 Racine Tornadoes folded operations weeks later.

While we do not expect the Chargers to shut things down, their upcoming schedule could see more losses than wins.

Then there is the list the Atlanta offense is on after two weeks, which comes to us courtesy of long-time NFL analyst Aaron Schatz and FTN Fantasy.

Through two games, the Falcons have one of the worst passing games, according to their Defense-adjusted Value Over Average metric, in the history of the league.

While DVOA dates back to 1977, during that span the Falcons now have the fifth-worst pass offense DVOA rating after two games. The Atlanta passing offense checks in with a DVOA of just -89.2%, besting only the 2002 Houston Texans (-90.0%), the 1978 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-97.4%), the 1984 Los Angeles Rams (-98.7%), and the 1979 Houston Oilers (103.2%).

The Falcons defense has been reasonable but their passing game has been horrific, stuck with third-string quarterback Cooper Rush and fourth-string quarterback Jack Strand. As a result, the Falcons have one of the worst pass offense DVOA ratings ever recorded through two games, going all the way back to 1977.

It is also worth noting that the 2002 Texans, the 1984 Rams, and the 1979 Oilers all managed to win games despite those horrific passing numbers. That Texans team, however, went on to finish 4-12.

But the other two teams, the 1984 Rams and the 1979 Oilers, actually went on to the playoffs! The 1984 Rams finished second in the NFC West, booking a spot in the playoffs. However, there they would lose to the New York Giants in the Wild Card round.

As for the 1979 Oilers, this was the “Luv Ya Blue!” team that won the AFC Central with a 11-5 record behind running back Earl Campbell. That team advanced to the AFC Championship Game, losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers by a final score of 27-13.

To date that the most recent time a Houston-based NFL team has reached the AFC Championship Game. The franchise did advance to Super Bowl XXXIV after moving to Tennessee and becoming the Titans, and most recently lost in the AFC Championship Game to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs back during the 2019-2020 season.

So there is perhaps some hope for the Falcons, even with this historically woeful passing attack through two games.

But DVOA is not the only way to examine Atlanta’s passing-game woes. Take some more advanced quarterback statistics, like Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt. Through two weeks the league average ANY/A is 6.4. Geno Smith is 15th in the league with an ANY/A of 6.6, and Joe Burrow is just below average, ranked 19th with an ANY/A of 6.1.

Rush has an ANY/A of 0.9. That ranks him 32nd out of 32 qualified passers. When you add in the non-qualifiers, Rush drops to 37th, one spot above Strand, who clocks in with an ANY/A of 0.1.

While those are not the negative numbers that I posted during my collegiate playing days, they are pretty bad.

Or we could look at Quarterback Efficiency, as charted by RBSDM, which looks at both Expected Points Added per Play and Completion Percentage Over Expected:

There is also some much-needed context to these numbers from Atlanta. As noted above they have come with third-string quarterback Rush, and fourth-string quarterback Strand, at the helm of the passing game. Tua Tagovailoa began the year as the starting quarterback, as Michael Penix Jr. works back from his knee injury, but Tagovailoa hurt his back in practice ahead of Week 1, forcing Rush into action.

His play forced Kevin Stefanski to turn to Strand.

Neither has been good, as the numbers show. So perhaps Penix could be better.

It would be hard to be worse.