Arizona Cardinals
The NFC South is a quintessential example of awful. No team in the division has a winning record, but a team is going to lose a playoff spot to a team from that Detroit-esque wasteland. That team will likely come from the NFC West, where there are three teams with legitimate chances to win the division.
One of them, the Arizona Cardinals, has already earned the title of the NFL’s most surprising team.
Lost in a division that includes the NFC’s representative to the Super Bowl the last two years, Arizona is playing little brother no more, sitting atop the west with an 8-1 record.
Yes, they did just lose Carson Palmer to a torn ACL, but he missed time earlier in the year and the team still won games. Drew Stanton led the team to two wins in three games, with the only loss coming to the Broncos.
How have the Cardinals done it? The team is third in the NFL in rushing allowed, giving up nearly 79 yards per game. They also rank in the top half of the NFL in offensive passing yards, tallying just under 250 yards per game.
Cleveland is a good story, but the Browns schedule has been extremely weak to start the season. Four of their six wins come against teams with losing records, including two teams that have won just one of 16 games so far in 2014.
The Cardinals are clearly the NFL’s most surprising team this season.
– Garth Shanklin
Cleveland Browns
I’ve been watching football almost my entire life, and I’ve seen plenty of teams exceed expectations. This year, the team that has stunned the NFL world the most has to be the Cleveland Browns and their 6-3 record thus far. What’s really astonishing is that every team in the AFC North has a record above .500.
Prior to the season, most expected the Bengals to win the division. The Ravens and Steelers would possibly be around .500 again, but the Browns should be bringing up the rear. Especially with Josh Gordon suspended for ten games, Cleveland’s playoff hopes looked slim to none. But now, after Cleveland’s 24-3 demolishing of Cincinnati and Pittsburgh’s lopsided loss to the New York Jets, the Browns sit atop the division. The Bengals are second at 5-3-1, and the Steelers and Ravens are tied at the bottom at 6-4. Granted, there are still seven weeks left. It’s too soon to pick a division winner, but these results are certainly surprising at this point in the season.
– Sam Dintruff
