Probably too soon for this: who are the surprises?

[belcherboy]

I’ve been surprised:

* The Bears are this bad. I honestly thought they would be competitive this year. Not playoff competitive but a 5-6 win team.

* The Broncos. I thought it might have been coaching and injuries last year that had them tank. So far they’ve looked BAD! Maybe the win against Chicago will spark something.

* Minnesota. I just don’t get them. I think they are 4th in passing yards. There run game sucks, so losing Cook may have been their undoing.

* Tampa. I thought they were making a run at the #1 draft pick when they named Baker their starting QB. He’s been solid and their defense has been really good. Very surprising to me.

* Colts. I didn’t see this coming. They are 2-2, but they’ve looked pretty good in all their games, especially with a rookie at QB.

 

[Battlelyon]

The Rams aren't a good team. They're young, healthy, motivated, and very well coached. They been dominated in the 2nd half of the last 3 games. This is a team that could be very good next season.

Agree, young teams tend to lose 2nd halves because they're still learning.

 

[Godstree]

I guarantee you every Lions fan deep down believed the team would blow it. We are all surprised.

God is surprised!

 

[Chief Cola]

Bengals with a bullet. Having the 2nd worst scoring offense after week 4 is not at all what I expected.

Kyle Shanahan and Pete Carroll are definitely not two of my favorite coaches but I have to give them credit for the job they've been doing with the 49ers and the overlooked Seahawks.

Rooting for the Lions even though they beat my Chiefs. They deserve their turn. Goff has quietly been pretty good for them.

Miami's stock is more volatile than Gary Busey on a cocaine bender but they've got some equally scary offensive weapons.

 

[belcherboy]

Bengals with a bullet. Having the 2nd worst scoring offense after week 4 is not at all what I expected.

Kyle Shanahan and Pete Carroll are definitely not two of my favorite coaches but I have to give them credit for the job they've been doing with the 49ers and the overlooked Seahawks.

Rooting for the Lions even though they beat my Chiefs. They deserve their turn. Goff has quietly been pretty good for them.

Miami's stock is more volatile than Gary Busey on a cocaine bender but they've got some equally scary offensive weapons.

The Bengals are mindboggling so far. Maybe they’ll turn it around, but I think they may just be done for this season. Plenty of time to make a comeback.

 

[PDay8810]

Burrow got paid
i guess

 

[Niner Outlaw]

Bengals with a bullet. Having the 2nd worst scoring offense after week 4 is not at all what I expected.

Bengals being 1-3? That's the record I would've expected had the Bengals sat Burrow for 4 weeks to heal up his calf. That record WITH Burrow, even a limited Burrow, is really bad. And Cincy doesn't have the easiest schedule from here on. They might want to sit Burrow now to try and salvage the season. That way he can sit for 3 weeks (including the bye) and try and come back for SF, Bills, Texans, and Bmore.

 

[Tainthappening]

Records by divisions

AFCE 8-8
AFCN 8-8
AFCS 8-8
AFCW 7-9

NFCE 10-6
NFCN 6-10
NFCS 7-9
NFCW 10-6

NFC pretty much inline with preseason expectations on divisional basis

AFC - would have expected AFCS below 500 and the rest of the divisions above 500

 

[shopson67]

AFC - would have expected AFCS below 500 and the rest of the divisions above 500

Depends on how much interdivisional games have been played though

 

[Battlelyon]

McVay just can't truly conceive how to balance an offense. He hears the call for more running plays, then calls runs on 3rd and 4 or more, passes on 3rd and 1, and doesn't mix pass/run on earlier downs.

There are so many young players on the Rams roster that they are almost guaranteed to screw up in key situations. 2nd youngest team (just behind the Pack), yet with aging vets as their star players. Stafford, AD, Kupp, Higbee (and RT Havenstein and PK Maher) are their only players 30+ to go with their 21 rookies. With all that, I've been pleasantly surprised thus far (other than the poor showing vs the Bengals and the near melt-down late yesterday). I'm curious what this offense looks like with Kupp returning to pair with Nacua. Hopefully they don't break Stafford before we get to see that transition smoothed out.

 

[shopson67]

View attachment 349277

He's been better of late with the emergence of Williams. The bigger fails have been on the extremely young defense and special teams.

 

[Fountain City Blues]

MaThanos doesn't care about parity, tbh.

Throwing to Costco employees. Still gonna finish with 12 wins.

 

[Battlelyon]

He's been better of late with the emergence of Williams. The bigger fails have been on the extremely young defense and special teams.

The Rams offense has been killing it and against hood defenses too, no team has rushed for more yards than the Rams. To go with rudhing, we have three legit WR weapons. Our rookie class has been extraordinary.

 

[Chief Cola]

I think the big surprise is the AFC. Supposedly loaded with star QBs, only Miami and Baltimore have 10 wins or more today.
I thought Baltimore overpaid for Lamar but here they are and even if he hasn't been all that great statistically, he's led them in the right direction.

The NFC has the Cowboys putting together another season with a playoff berth clinched already and sitting even at 10-4 with Philly. I still think Mike McCarthy has been way overly criticized.

Detroit is a surprise and I don't care who thought they were smart by saying they would be good this year. It's still a surprise to see them at 10-4 with a substantial lead in their division.

Cincy is a big late season surprise with Jake Browning playing extremely well with them. I thought they were completely done when Home Alone Guy got hurt.

 

[Battlelyon]

I think the big surprise is the AFC. Supposedly loaded with star QBs, only Miami and Baltimore have 10 wins or more today.
I thought Baltimore overpaid for Lamar but here they are and even if he hasn't been all that great statistically, he's led them in the right direction.

The NFC has the Cowboys putting together another season with a playoff berth clinched already and sitting even at 10-4 with Philly. I still think Mike McCarthy has been way overly criticized.

Detroit is a surprise and I don't care who thought they were smart by saying they would be good this year. It's still a surprise to see them at 10-4 with a substantial lead in their division.

Cincy is a big late season surprise with Jake Browning playing extremely well with them. I thought they were completely done when Home Alone Guy got hurt.

The Cowboys? Dak can't perform in any adverse conditions or on the road.

 

[msgkings322]

OP looking pretty good after all

 

[Xeliou66]

The biggest surprises this year are the Texans and Colts IMO. I figured the Texans were on the road to improvement but I didn’t think they would be in the playoff race this year, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Colts given their QB situation (I’m not sold on Richardson) but Minshew has done a very good job. The Broncos being in the playoff race is also surprising to me, especially after the beatdown they suffered week 3 in Miami, since then their defense has improved dramatically.

The Chargers have been the biggest disappointment IMO - they have a very good QB in Herbert and they’ve just wasted his talent so far. I never expect a whole lot from the Chargers but I expected them to be in the playoff race. And the Jets have been bad, but as soon as Rodgers went down everyone knew they would struggle.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

I'll take this in a slightly different direction for a minute. Biggest non surprises of the season.
The Giants stink. Were hyped up by the NY media after last years artificial success and inexplicably gave Jones that extension even though the writing was on the wall that he really is not a good QB. The Tommy Cutlets thing was a temporary glimmer of false hope.
C.J. Stroud appears to be the best QB in the draft. Called it from day 1 that he was the only one of the bunch worth a first rd pick. Not gonna totally rag on Bryce Young because Carolina is so bad and he may turn out okay but he certainly isn't first overall level good. Just another Bama QB. Richardson was a reach but the injury set's him back. Proof that size isn't everything and a guy can still get injured. How Josh Allen has stayed healthy the way he recklessly plays at times is astounding to me.
Justin Fields didn't really improve much. It's getting close to the point that this kid is what he is. It will be interesting to see what happens in the off-season because the Bears are sitting in a perfect spot to go in a different direction.
Brandon Staley and Josh McDaniel would be fired at some point in-season. Seriously, is anybody surprised that these 2 asshats didn't make it through the year. On the flipside of that, not surprised that Shane Steichen and DeMeco Ryans have succeeded.
Despite the dearth of starting QBs going down due to injury and people still bringing up the name stupidly year after year, Colin Kaepernick isn't even on anybody's "maybe" list. The dude is done playing football so let's put that conversation to bed already and just ignore anything he has to say regarding football.
And last but not least, the talking head media continues to get exponentially worse year after year thanks to podcasts and blogs and all the other shit out there. The "hot takes" are getting off the wall outrageous and frankly, it's mentally draining.