Can you believe we’re already halfway through the 2019 NFL season? Time flies when you’re having fun.
In the dog days of summer, it’s a lot of fun to try and speculate about the upcoming season. Those in the media get bored as they cover rookie camp and optional team activities, so their sights are already set for the regular season.
Not everything has gone according to plan. Some teams have exceeded expectations while others have failed to meet them. While some players are becoming household names, others are falling off the radar.
So what were some of the biggest surprises from the 2019 NFL season?
The 49ers might be the best team in the NFC
Yes, the 49ers just dropped an overtime heartbreaker against a division rival. The NFC West is still wide open, despite the fact that the current frontrunners were the last undefeated team in the league.
By and large, the 49ers looked like they were going to run the table in the NFC. The loss doesn’t diminish their chances all that much, however. The Seahawks still needed most of the overtime period to pull out the win, and they only got the opportunity because a rookie kicker, who they signed off the street earlier that week, missed the go-ahead field goal.
The fact that San Francisco was the NFL’s last undefeated team is a bit of a surprise, considering that they were only 4-12 in 2018. But John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan are starting to reap the benefits of their rebuild, and now they’re looking at the prospect of having home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Not only are the 49ers coming back from a losing season, where they earned the second overall pick in the draft fair and square, but in the preseason it looked like their franchise quarterback had the yips. Many thought he was still suffering the effects of his knee surgery, which kept him out of the 2018 season. Mentally, he didn’t look prepared.
Jimmy Garoppolo put those rumors to rest, though, and paired with one of the league’s best rushing attacks and defenses, the 49ers are not taking prisoners.
The Patriots defense is historic
We all knew that the Patriots would be contenders, but they usually rely on the arm of Tom Brady and the coaching savvy of Bill Belichick to outscore opponents.
This year, the Patriots defense has been lights-out. Not only have they kept their opponents from scoring on them, but they have actually scored more touchdowns than they have given up. If the offense never took the field at all in 2019, the Patriots could have outscored their opponents three times and tied once.
Part of the reason for this is that Belichick has taken over in lieu of a traditional defensive coordinator. There is no doubt that his hands-on coaching is what has transformed this defense from being pretty good to historic.
This defense did surrender 30 points to the Ravens, but that leads to the next point.
Lamar Jackson is an MVP frontrunner
While the “running back” tag was a little over simplistic, the sentiment remained that Lamar Jackson was more of a mobile quarterback than a passing threat.
You have to give his head coach John Harbaugh a lot of credit here. Mobile quarterbacks usually have success in college that translates poorly to the NFL. But Harbaugh partnered with his offensive coordinator Greg Roman to come up with a game plan that has really helped him out. Roman was the OC in San Francisco when he took the similarly-skilled quarterback Colin Kaepernick and head coach Jim Harbaugh to Super Bowl XLVII. There of course, John the victorious Harbaugh brother, but Roman must have made an impression on him.
Not only is Jackson 11th in the NFL in rushing, he is also the first quarterback in NFL history to post two games in which he recorded a perfect passer rating. The threat of his legs combined with his passing ability is giving opposing defenses nightmares.
This is exactly how the Ravens took down the Patriots. Belichick didn’t know how to defend Jackson. It seems like the best way to beat the Ravens is to beat their defense. In the Ravens’ only losses so far, their opponents scored 33 points in one and 40 points in the other.
Jackson is one of the most electric players in the league since Michael Vick. We’ll see if teams can make the adjustments necessary to slow him down. But for the time being, Jackson will just keep on rolling.
The Browns were a massive flop
The Browns had arguably one of the worst head coaches of all time for two and a half seasons, so they fired him and immediately improved.
Interim OC Freddie Kitchens led Baker Mayfield to an incredible run to close out his rookie season, and earned a head coaching job in the process. Then, the Browns went out and added sensational wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and suddenly they were crowned as Super Bowl contenders.
Many cynics were wise in hesitating to celebrate the Browns’ success before they even played a down of football. Browns fans, however, took to Twitter to post photographic evidence that they were not bandwagon fans.
As it turns out, the Browns season didn’t go as planned. Mayfield has tossed more interceptions than touchdowns. Beckham is getting fewer targets per game than he ever got in New York. Kitchens’ play calling has been a far cry from the scheming that elevated the Browns’ offense last season.
As it turns out, their acclaim was premature, and Kitchens’ record was actually worse than his predecessor Hue Jackson‘s through eight games. Jackson was fired, though, so Kitchens’ future is murky at this point.
Antonio Brown completely imploded
Antonio Brown was one of the most exciting players in the league at one point, but he flared out like a meteor on impact.
The whole saga is well documented, so I won’t go over it all here. But incase you just woke up from a coma, you can read more about it here.
Brown went from being an All Pro to being a locker room nuisance while in Pittsburgh. Some thought that a change in scenery would be good for him, and once Brown was out from Ben Roethlisberger‘s shadow he would go back to being the player he once was.
As it turns out, Brown’s antics were far from over, and he was out of the league even more quickly than when he rose to the top.
If you had told me that Brown would be done playing football by September 2019, I wouldn’t have believed you. Yet, here we are. Browns’ done for 2019, if not longer.
Few players have risen to the heights that Brown rose to. Consequently, few fell as fast or as far.
What has surprised you the most about the 2019 season?