After tonight's Miami-New England match-up, a quarter of the 2010 NFL season will officially be in the books. Consistently inconsistent, the NFL always holds surprises that no one saw coming. Whether it be over or underachieving teams or players, this year has stuck to the unpredictable storyline that separates the league from all other professional sports. This recap may be premature, but here are the biggest surprises from the first quarter of the season:
Thanks to their Week 4 bye, the Kansas City Chiefs remain the only unbeaten team. Previous un-beatens Chicago and Pittsburgh both fell this week in defensive slug-fests. KC faces the Colts this week, which more then likely will hand them their first loss of 2010.
Speaking of the Colts, after a last second loss to the Jags on Sunday, they start the season 2-2 for the first time since 2001, which coincidentally was the last time they missed the playoffs. With two divisional losses in the books, Indy is currently the cellar-dweller in the suddenly extremely competitive AFC South.
Other surprise last place teams include, 0-4 San Fransisco, 0-4 Carolina, and 1-2 Dallas. All of those squads, as well as 0-4 Detroit and 1-3 Oakland were “supposed” to be on the upswing, while the likes of KC, Arizona, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, and Jacksonville succumbed to their lack of talent.
The predicted bottom-two team in Buffalo has held true to the forecast, as they fell to 0-4 after being demolished by the Jets. They have allowed a league worst 125 points, while scoring 61 points to drop them to 4th worst offensively. They play in one of the worst NFL cities, have the least talented team in the entire league, and have almost nothing in the future to look forward to except possibly moving to Las Vegas or Toronto and the first pick in the 2011 draft.
Individual performances have made for weekly intrigue thus far. Arian Foster leads the NFL in rushing yardage by over 120 yards, and the top 5 include Darren McFadden and Ahmad Bradshaw, neither of whom have rushed for more than 780 yards in a season.
Brady, Big Brother Manning, and Rivers rank among the top 5 in QB rating, but who saw Mark Sanchez and Mike Vick joining them? Vick went down with an undisclosed injury against Washington yesterday and will probably miss a few games, but Sanchez has been the opposite of a typical NFL sophomore QB.
The top 10 WR rankings host an abundance of familiar faces, with the exception of one Brandon Lloyd. Second in the league with 454 yards, Kyle Orton has seemingly found a new favorite target who is poised to more than double his career high in yardage and receptions. Terrell Owens also surprised on Sunday, with his second highest receiving-yardage game of his career, hauling in 10 passes for 222 yards and a score. Still, the Bengals have been a shadow of last year's team and cannot seem to regain the offensive-juggernaut status they held in the earlier part of the decade.
On the defensive side of the ball, leading tacklers Lawrence Timmons, James Anderson, and Bernard Pollard each have 41+ tackles. None of the top 10 in tackles this year finished in the top 10 last year, and the Redskins posses 4 of the top 15 in the league.
Clay Matthews and Mario Williams are among the top 3 in sacks, continuing to prove the importance of youth and speed on the defensive side of the ball. Rookie safety Earl Thomas out of Texas is showing just how much of a steal he was for Seattle, leading the NFL with 3 interceptions, while defending 3 passes and recording 23 tackles through the first 4 games.
Leading off the disappointments of the year, Reggie Bush was injured for the 4th time in his 5 years in the NFL, proving the importance of drafting for durability.
Matt Moore, Trent Edwards, and Jason Campbell all managed to find their ways to the bench before a quarter of the season had closed, giving way to Jimmy Clausen, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Bruce Gradkowski respectively. Jake Delhomme, Derek Anderson, Kevin Kolb, and David Garrard have all also found ways to justify their benching, continuing the NFL QB carousel mantra. 48 quarterbacks have already made appearances this year, proving that even third-string QB's have a shot at playing time of the right (or wrong) team.
Running back's have hosted more disappointments then surprises in 2010. Peyton Hillis, Arian Foster, Mike Tolbert, Jason Snelling, LaDainian Tomlinson, Jahvid Best, John Kuhn, and Ryan Torain have all shown flashes of surprising success. But after that short list begins a scroll of slow-starters, early injuries, and poor performances, by the likes of Ray Rice, MJD, Chris Johnson, Cadillac Williams, Fred Taylor, Beanie Wells, Jonathan Stewart, Felix Jones, Fred Jackson, Montario Hardesty, Michael Bush, CJ Spiller, Knowshon Moreno, and Kevin Faulk, to name a few. Props to anyone with the foresight to scoop up Foster/Best/Tomlinson in their fantasy drafts, and the fantasy world feels the painful sting for those depending on Johnson, Rice, Moreno and Stewart.
Leading receivers have been more consistent then other positions, but Mike Sims-Walker, Michael Crabtree, Jason Witten, Brent Celek, Heath Miller, Percy Harvin, Lee Evans, Jerricho Cotchery, TJ Houshmanzadeh, Early Bennett, Johnny Knox, and Mohammed Massaquoi have all failed to impress, due to limited targets, poor QB performances, injuries, or the lack of seizing increased playtime opportunities.
Finally, below are the early leaders for the prestigious NFL awards. The regular candidates lead most awards, with a few surprises tossed in for fun.
MVP
Peyton Manning
Arian Foster
Mark Sanchez
Offensive-POY
Peyton Manning
Philip Rivers
Antonio Gates
Defensive-POY
Clay Matthews
Lawrence Timmons
Ray Lewis
Offensive ROY
Sam Bradford
Jahvid Best
Aaron Hernandez
Defensive ROY
Earl Thomas
Ndamukong Suh
Nate Allen
Coach of the Year
Todd Haley
Gary Kubiak
Rex Ryan
Golden Toe (Kicker)
Matt Bryant
Mike Nugent
Neil Rackers
Comeback Player of the Year
Brandon Lloyd
Rashard Mendenhall
Mike Vick
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