Rather than doing my usual weekly wrap-up, I thought it would be best to zoom out a little bit and look at the entirety of the season. The NFL’s 16-game schedule creates perfect timing for a quarter-season assessment.
Team Awards
Best Team: Tie — New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs
The indisputable two best teams in the league feature the league’s indisputable best units: the breathtaking Chiefs offense and impenetrable Patriots defense. Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are on an inevitable collision course for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady in the AFC Championship game. The only question is whether the game takes place in New England or Kansas City.
Worst Team: Washington Redskins
Miami might be the worst team in NFL history… but here’s the thing:
The Redskins star left tackle, Trent Williams, refuses to report to the team. He’s not even holding out, he just hates the organization that much. Jay Gruden just announced the team doesn’t have a quarterback for Week 5. This franchise is a fucking disgrace.
Biggest Surprise: San Francisco 49ers
I’m going to be the last man on the Niners bandwagon if it kills me. Don’t get me wrong I love Kyle Shanahan and George Kittle. But the rest of the team? Not so much.
Yet, the 49ers have proved me wrong. They sit at 3-0 and in first place in the entire NFC. I don’t think it lasts, but that’s why these are quarter season awards.
Biggest Disappointment: Atlanta Falcons
The NFC South is screaming for someone to grab the reins, yet the Falcons are 1-3. Seriously? They can’t still be seeing ghosts from the Super Bowl, right? If they are, get Dan Quinn the hell out of there. It’s telling that the league’s best surprise is led by Kyle Shanahan, while the biggest disappointment has never been able to replace him.
Even the Falcons PR department is disappointing, but at least we can laugh at their mistakes.
Individual Awards
MVP: Patrick Mahomes
Do we even need to discuss this? Mahomes is on pace for over 6,000 passing yards, which would shatter Peyton Manning’s single-season record. He leads the league with 1,510 passing yards, 10 touchdowns, 9.7 yards per attempt, 11.0 adjusted yards per attempt… shall I go on?
Don’t even try to come up with some creative, outside the box answer. You’d be wrong.
Offensive Player of the Year: Christian McCaffery
McCaffery leads the league with 629 yards from scrimmage through four games. He’s also on pace to break the single-season record; this time it’s Chris Johnson’s. McCaffery has almost single-handedly kept the Panthers season afloat in Cam Newton’s absence/general shitty-ness.
Defensive Player of the Year: Shaquil Barrett
Statistically, it’s impossible to deny Barrett. He leads the league with a whopping 9 sacks. He’s also contributed 20 tackles, 3 forced fumbles, 2 passes defended and an interception. Not bad for a guy the Buccaneers signed for $4 million on a prove-it deal.
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Terry McLaurin
The lone bright spot in Washington’s catastrophic season: “Scary Terry”, “McLovin”, “F1” — whatever you want to call him (the correct answer is F1). McLaurin has been incredible in his first three career games. He’s recorded at least 5 catches, 60 yards and a touchdown in each of his first three games before missing Week 4 with a hamstring injury.
Fellow rookie wide receiver Marquise Brown has been nearly as good. His 147-yard, 2-touchdown explosion in his debut was historic. But the consistency simply isn’t there.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the offensive rookies. I thought the field was rather weak entering the season, but they’ve surpassed all expectations. Well, except David Montgomery. Sigh.
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Devin Bush
Bush has the early lead of a wide open DROY race. He leads all rookies with 37 tackles and recorded one of the Steelers million sacks of Andy Dalton in Week 4.
For what it’s worth, my preseason pick, Brian Burns, already has 2.5 sacks and has yet to be unleashed by Ron Rivera.
Breakout Star: Chris Godwin
There’s a reason I traded out of the 4th pick in my fantasy draft. Not because I didn’t want McCaffery in the first round, but because I did not want Mike Evans in the second. Football Twitter convinced me the Godwin-breakout was coming.
My third round investment has already paid dividends. Godwin ranks third with 386 receiving yards and is tied for the league lead with 4 touchdowns. Over 88% of his receptions result in a first down, which ranks second among players with at least 10 catches. The Buccaneers are targeting Godwin when it matters most and he’s proving to be a budding star.
Biggest Surprise: Tie — Daniel Jones and Gardner Minshew
How am I supposed to choose here? On the one hand, Danny Dimes has been downright good when we all thought he completely sucked. On the other, Minshew was a unheralded 6th round pick who began the season as Nick Foles’ backup. In just a couple weeks, Minshew Mania and his ‘stache have won our hearts over.
They’re both rookies and since they play the sport’s most important position, so they’ll become Rookie of the Year co-favorites once they get a few more games under their belt.
You can’t make me pick one of Jones and Minshew. That’s like asking me to pick between Josh Allen and sweet tea. They’re equally terrible — I can’t pick one over the other.
Biggest Disappointment: Baker Mayfield
I’m confident Mayfield and Freddie Kitchens will turn it around sooner rather than later, but it’s been a rough start for my preseason MVP. (Granted, that was stupid at the time.) We saw the Browns’ potential in their Week 4 win over Baltimore, but, as usual with Cleveland, we need to see consistency.
It’s important to note the Browns wildly disappointed in first four weeks. Yet, they find themselves at 2-2 and in the driver’s seat of the AFC North. Imagine what they could do once Mayfield and Odell Beckham start clicking and Freddie Kitchens stops calling draw plays on 4th and 9.
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