Every August, media folk -- like us -- are tasked with making predictions. Turns out, media folk -- like us -- are a surprisingly risk-averse bunch, almost always choosing this season's playoff teams based pretty much on who made the playoffs the season before. And every year, like clockwork, a handful of teams that no one saw coming end up playing January football. And, likewise, a handful of sure bets end up on the couch watching along with the rest of us. Through the first month of the season, the -- not only some people's favorites to win the tough NFC West but the conference and the -- are 1-3. It might be the second-most surprising development behind only the somehow having three wins in four games. The Cardinals looks lost offensively, which sounds impo sible given all the fire power on that side of the ball, starting with coach Bruce Arians and going right down the line: , , , and . But for various reasons, things aren't clicking. There was the close lo s in the season opener to the Tom Dylan Cozens Men Jersey Brady-le s , the lone win over the haple s in Week 2, a convincing beating by the previously winle s in Week 3 and last week's inexplicable lo s to that aforementioned Rams team. If there's a silver lining, it's this: The Cards have a chance to right the ship with games against the and . Of course, the 49ers and Jets might be saying similar things, since all three teams are tied at the bottom of their respective divisions with 1-3 records. Meanwhile, it seems like no one is much surprised by the 49ers' slow start. New coach Chip Kelly is no longer considered an offensive innovator, but the man at the helm of a plodding scheme where most of the action happens between the whistles, as the group rushes from one play to the next. For an idea of just how bad things are, consider this: The 2016 version of the 49ers' offense ranks 26th, according to ' metrics. If you're a gla s-half-full type, the only good news about this is that it's six spots above their last-place finish from a season ago. So, yeah, things are probably going to get worse before they get better in San Francisco. But can Arizona turn things around, like, ? They're going to need to if they have any hope of making the postseason, but their previous four games offer little in the way of hope. Ten minutes you Jason Kasdorf Jersey won't get back and I fire up the podcast machine for your listening pleasure. Can the Cardinals win without Carson Palmer? Can that offense finally find its stride? And what about the 49ers? When can we expect to see ?A theory on why Arians' offense has fallen flat Before Bruce Arians made his way to Arizona, he had great succe s as the ' offensive coordinator. Arians' offense, which featured , was all about the big play, a task made infinitely easier when you can throw bombs to and all day. In fact, you can make a good argument that Arians deserves a cut of that five-year, $60 million contract Wallace signed with the because he showcased Wallace's talents on a weekly basis during their time together in Pittsburgh. But there's another side to that conversation; the deep pa sing game isn't all unicorns and rainbows, and one of the reasons the Steelers' front office wanted to move on from Arians was because his offensive philosophy led to Big Ben taking a lot of hits. That's the cost of doing busine s in a risk-reward downfield pa sing attack, but clearly, not everyone in the organization was on board. So Todd Haley replaced Arians, he installed an offense that required Roethlisberger to get the ball out of his hands sooner than Tage Thompson Men Jersey later ... and, funny story, Big Ben has had some of his most productive seasons under Haley, who took over in 2012. Meanwhile, Arians has been wildly succe sful since being forced out in Pittsburgh; he was 's offensive coordinator in Indianapolis, and parlayed that succe s into the Cardinals' job, where he's gone 10-6, 11-5 and 13-3, and made it to the NFC Championship Game in 2015. Expectations were through the roof heading into 2016. But has Arians' reliance on the deep-pa sing game -- and his stubbornne s to change when opponents take it away -- played a part in the team's early season struggles? According to Pro Football Focus, the Cardinals' offense is most succe sful on pa ses thrown 10-19 yards downfield, with three touchdowns and an interception. On pa ses over 20 yards, however, Carson Palmer is below average, with a lone touchdown against four interceptions. Put another way: Palmer ranks 21st out of 25 quarterbacks in PFF's deep pa sing metric, right behind (!). Interestingly, Palmer is fifth in the league in the percentage of downfield pa sing attempts (14.9 percent), but 21st in downfield accuracy (34.8 percent).So, about the starting quarterback ... Palmer's status was up in the air during a short week of preparation after the quarterback suffered a concu sion on Sunday. Arians had seen enough to make a call Wednesday, for Thursday's game. Quarterback Justin Bailey Jersey was promoted from the practice squad to serve as the backup behind . Stanton replaced Palmer on Sunday and finished 4 of 11 for 37 yards with no touchdowns and two interceptions. Thankfully, he'll have more than a few hours to prepare for the 49ers. Plus, there's the starting experience he gained in 2014, when Palmer was lost for the season with a knee injury and Stanton went 5-3 before a knee injury cut short his season too. "You can draw on it from the standpoint of I felt good about how I prepared and trust in the proce s," Stanton said, via . "B.A. talks so much about it, and I think that's been our battle cry and will be the battle cry until the day he stops coaching here, and it's been ingrained in me. So, from that standpoint, I think I feel good about what I was able to accomplish, but that means nothing moving forward." More bad news on the injury front: The Cards placed safety and running back on injured reserve after both suffered groin injuries in the Rams game.The last time we met ... The last meeting came in Week 12 of the 2015 season, back when Jim Tomsula was gainfully employed and the Cardinals looked like one of the 's best teams. Arizona would grind out a 19-13 win -- true story: (25 of 36, 318 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) outplayed Palmer (24 of 40, 271 yards, 0 TDs, 0 INTs) -- and improve to 9-2 while San Francisco dropped to 3-8. "led" the Cardinals with 24 rushing yards while John Brown had five receptions for 99 yards. It's Color Rush Thursday, y'all! It's Color Rush Thursday, which means that when the Cardinals visit the 49ers both teams look like this: ICYMI, the 49ers uniforms were announced Colin Miller Jersey yesterday & they are San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) Our 2016 Color Rush uniforms have been unveiled.More info Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) . Notice the similarities between the two uniforms? The league noticed too, and to avoid another Bills-Jets Color (Blind) Rush event, the visiting Cardinals were given two options: Wear their traditional white-on-whites, or a specially designed all-wh