Browns charm Bears nastiness among early surprises of 2018

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Browns' charm, Bears' nastine s among early surprises of 2018 Published: Oct 05, 2018 at 03:34 AM The Browns are fun as hell We all knew entering the season that -- on paper -- the had the pieces in place to be competitive. This was never going to be a redux of 0-16. But who would have predicted the would be football's most entertaining team as we reach October? Cleveland has won, tied and lost (twice), and every game has gone down to the final po se sion. and rookie have been studs on defense, and has pumped life into the offense after being inserted mid-game against the . "I already told the defense this: I think is this generation's Brett Favre or John Elway, if you will," defensive coordinator Don "Wink" Martindale said Thursday. "This guy knows where he wants to go with the ball, and he's very accurate. He's got a quick release, and he's really playing well." Some heady praise there, but you get where ol' Wink is coming from. Real talk? The could be 4-0 right now. Sure, they could be 0-4, too ... but the one thing they haven't been is boring. Will they keep it up? Might depend on your opinion of Hue Jackson, but this feels like a team that could be in shouting distance of a wild-card spot come . Imagine that? Joe Flacco's pride is a powerful thing It's always fun Brooks Laich Women Jersey this time of year to circle back to widely circulated/regurgitated football opinions of the summertime and see how they panned out. For the , it was this: , 33 years old and three seasons removed from his last campaign with a 90-plus pa ser rating, was looming cannon fodder. The had selected in the first round of the 2018 , and it was only a matter of time before Jackson displaced Flacco atop the depth chart. Flacco has put all that on hold. The XLVII MVP has thrived; he's on pace to set career highs in pa sing yards per game, TD-to-INT ratio and pa ser rating. According to Next Gen Stats, Flacco's air yards per attempt has jumped from 6.6 last year to 8.6, and he ranks third among all quarterbacks in pa ser rating on tight-window throws (99.0). In other words, Flacco is pa sing downfield more regularly, and he's sticking the ball in windows at a percentage few other QBs can match. That sounds a lot like 2012 Playoff , right? Will he keep it up? There's a good chance he will. Two major factors working in Flacco's favor: A) He's not dealing with the knee and back i sues of recent years; and B) Baltimore's wide receiver corps is far superior to what we saw last year. has emerged as a killer deep threat and is on pace for a 1,300-yard season. And don't forget tight end , the first-round pick in Week 5. The Steelers ... kind of stink? You have to go back 30 years to find the last time the finished last in their division. From a record standpoint, that's where they sit right now, deadlocked with the at 1-2-1. This is a team with i sues on both sides of the ball. On offense, it's the lingering absence of franchise running back , by Week 8, though that does Pittsburgh no good right now. is a nice player, but he has cooled after a hot start. He's no Lev Bell ... and we shouldn't have expected him to be. On defense, we're looking at a unit that hasn't been the same since 's injury last December. Shazier won't be able to help them this year, so it's on Mike Tomlin and defensive coordinator Keith Butler to fix a defense that ranks 30th in yards per game entering Sunday. presents a daunting challenge. Will they figure it out? History tells us the will get this going in the right direction again, but there are no guarantees here. The AFC North is a much-improved division in 2018 -- maybe the best all-around division in football -- and Pittsburgh isn't going to waltz to 11-5 again. Getting Bell back will help, but the are doomed to also-ran status if some players don't step up on defense. The Titans are an AFC power If you don't jump on the bandwagon now, it's probably not going to happen. Over the past two weeks, the took out and . They've done it with opportunistic offense and a defense that ranks amongst the NFL's best in several metrics. Tenne see's been especially stingy in the red zone, allowing a touchdown rate of 20 percent. If the sustain that mark, it will be the lowest red-zone touchdown percentage Dave Taylor Men Jersey allowed in a full season since at least 2000. Are the for real? Inconclusive. is coming off , but he's been banged up -- a recurring theme throughout his career. The running game is off to a slow start: and are at 3.0 and 3.3 yards per carry, respectively. The defense could also be due for a regre sion to the mean in red-zone D -- that would be problematic for a team that has a combined nine-point margin of victory in its first three wins. The Bears are an NFC power It's hard not to be on fire as a fan after what happened . Mitch Trubisky threw six touchdown pa ses in a 48-10 rout of the Bucs. The blowout showed us the ceiling of this Chicago team when it combines its suffocating defense with a first-round quarterback who can sling it. Of course, there was much hand-wringing about that first-round quarterback before Week 4, and it's too soon to say that Trubisky is now on some rocket ride to superstardom. But the are fun ... it's been a long time since you could say that. And no conversation about the right now is complete without discu sing the impact of , who is playing like a league MVP. "It's like the LeBron effect," cornerback . "He just makes everybody better. When you see greatne s like that up close, it just makes everyone else want to be great that much more." Praise doesn't get much higher than that. Are the for real? Why not? The defense is for real, so a lot of this comes down to how Trubisky develops. He doesn't need to be Year 2 for the to play late-January football. He needs to be smart with the football and take proper advantage of the playmakers on his side. That might start with , who (174 yards from scrimmage) and could be the type of safety-valve player that a young quarterback dreams of. Patrick Mahomes is unstoppable against the didn't measure up statistically to earlier performances this season -- but it was still Mahomes' most impre Kyle Clifford Jersey sive moment yet as a pro. On the road in a madhouse, down multiple scores against a frothing defense, Mahomes never let the moment overwhelm him. In the fourth quarter, he was 13-of-16 pa sing for 153 yards, leading two touchdown drives in a thrilling 27-23 win. to with all over him is already the stuff of and MNF legend. He is at or near the top in almost every relevant pa sing category, and somehow, it feels like Mahomes might be just scraping the surface. Will he keep it up? Put it this way ... If this is who Mahomes is, the will be contending for the on a regular basis for the next decade-plus. He's been special. Taking a step back, and the were similarly monstrous early last season before coming down to Earth. Will the same happen in 2018 with Mahomes? Teams will adjust. Mahomes will have to continue to evolve. There's no reason to think he won't. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be mi sing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an i sue.
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