Pleasant Surprise Team

Earlier this week I brought you a team of players who have been the most disappointing this season. Today I’m going in the opposite direction, listing eleven players on offense and defense who have been pleasant surprises this year.

As with the other team, I gave myself a set of rules to follow. I tried to aim for less heralded players who have been in the league for some time performing at a less than extraordinary level. Bjoern Werner has been much better than anyone expected coming into the season, but he was still a first round pick just last year. This is normal development, and it shouldn’t be surprising. I also didn’t include any rookies on the list, even though players like John Brown and Joe Bitonio would fit in well with this team.

Offense

Quarterback: Philip Rivers, San Diego Chargers

It was difficult for me to find a quarterback for this spot on the most disappointing team, and it was even harder this time around. Quarterback is, by its nature, a position where it is very hard to come out of nowhere. I considered going with someone like Austin Davis or Brian Hoyer, but simply playing at a slightly below average level shouldn’t be enough to be considered a ‘pleasant surprise.’ I needed someone playing at a high level, someone exceeding all expectations coming into the season.

I’m still not completely happy with this, but Rivers is the best I’m going to do. Expectations were extremely high coming into the season, after last year performing like one of the top five quarterbacks in the league. Everyone expected him to continue to play very well, even if many suspected he would fall back. We not only has he not fallen back, he’s actually gotten better. Last year he was excellent, but he was still a level below top quarterbacks like Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, and (healthy) Aaron Rodgers. This year he is right up there with those three and Andrew Luck, neck and neck and neck and neck and neck for the title of best quarterback in the league.

Rivers has done this despite a startling drop in his team’s running game and a mildly disappointing season from top wideout Keenan Allen. Both of these will improve as the season goes on, cancelling any natural regression by Rivers. I don’t think he will win MVP at the end of the year, but I expect his name to be heavily involved in every conversation for the award.

Running Back: DeMarco Murray, Dallas Cowboys; Justin Forsett, Baltimore Ravens

I’m going with two running backs because it was easier to find surprising running backs than it was wide receivers. Murray is the obvious choice, a talented runner who has exploded into the most productive back in the league. We all knew that Dallas’s offensive line was great coming into the season, but questions about Murray’s ability to handle the load left most people skeptical about how effective their rushing game could be. So far Murray has certainly carried the load for the team—has carried two or three teams’ worth of load to be honest—and has produced more than a thousand yards over the first half of the season. He’ll cool down eventually, whether through exhaustion or injury or bad luck. But with the sizeable lead he has, I think he is even money to end up leading the league in rushing this season.

At the beginning of the season Forsett was sitting third on the Ravens depth chart, with most people assuming rookie Lorenzo Taliaferro would pass him by soon enough. The suspension and release of Ray Rice gave him life, and the incompetence of Bernard Pierce gave him a platform to show the world what he is capable of. After six years bouncing around the bottom of depth charts, he is currently fourth in the league in rushing yards and behind only Mark Ingram in yards per carry. The improved offensive line deserves a lot of credit (which I will give them below) but Forsett is doing far more behind it than any other back they’ve plugged in.

Wide Receiver: Emmanuel Sanders, Denver Broncos; Golden Tate, Detroit Lions;

It shouldn’t be a surprise to see Sanders on this team. Peyton Manning has always been very generous to wide receivers, and with Wes Welker on the decline Sanders is their clear number two receiving option. But no one could have expected this level of play from him. In four years with Pittsburgh he never once had 100 yards receiving. He has done it four times in seven games since joining the Broncos. It is a testament to Manning’s greatness that he can get so much more out of a receiver than another top ten quarterback like Ben Roethlisberger ever could.

Detroit has spent the past eight years desperately searching for a second receiver opposite Calvin Johnson. Tate was supposed to be their answer this year, but so far injuries to Johnson have robbed us of the chance to see what the two of them could do. Instead Tate has been asked to carry the receiving corps on his own, and he has proven more than capable. He is third in the league in receiving yards, and in each of the past two games he scored a long touchdown to power a Lions comeback victory. Tate is about the only thing working well on their offense right now, and it will be interesting to see how he performs once Johnson returns.

Tight End: Delanie Walker, Tennessee Titans

I really wanted to go with Larry Donnell on this one. In fact, I’m still a bit surprised I didn’t. Donnell certainly came from nowhere to put together a breakout performance, but it isn’t unusual to see little known players prove to be better than expected. It is much more uncommon to see an established NFL veteran go from a blocking tight end into a dangerous weapon down the field. Walker thrived for years as a second tight end in San Francisco, but he was a disappointment when given a leading role in Tennessee last season. So far this year he has been their most dangerous threat in the passing game, one of the few things to like about their offense. They have other talented players on the outside who will step up and take some of his production, but he is definitely more than the one dimensional player we thought he was coming into the season.

Offensive Tackle: Kelvin Beachum, Pittsburgh Steelers; Terron Armstead, New Orleans Saints

Beachum should not be a starting left tackle in the NFL. There is no way it makes sense. He was a seventh round pick as a utility lineman, always assumed to be unable to play on a quarterback’s blindside due to his short stature. He ended up there last year only due to the failure of second round selection Mike Adams, and somehow he has held down the role. Not only has he held it down, he has been one of the better pass protecting tackles in the league. Roethlisberger had a record performance this past weekend largely thanks to impeccable protection. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while now, but I’m starting to believe there is a genuine chance he can hold down that position for a while.

Armstead was a more highly touted prospect than Beachum coming into the league, but it wasn’t because of his skillset as a blocker. Armstead is a freak athlete, going in the third round of last year’s draft after running the fastest recorded 40 time for an offensive lineman. Other than that he is known mostly for being eaten alive by Greg Hardy and the Panthers late last season. He was one of the biggest concerns for New Orleans headed into the season, but so far he has been a solid option at left tackle. He should only get better as he develops, and if he can harness his athletic potential he can become one of the top players at his position.

Offensive Guard: Kelechi Osemele, Baltimore Ravens; Ronald Leary, Dallas Cowboys

Osemele has had an interesting career, which is a strange thing to say about a player only in his third season. As a rookie he started most of the regular season at right tackle before being moved to left guard for Baltimore’s Super Bowl run. He stayed at that position last year, struggling for most of the season along with everyone else on the Ravens roster. But through the first half of this season he has taken a massive step forward, playing better than any other guard in the league. A young player coming into his own, I have every reason to expect that he will remain a dominant force for the rest of the season and for years to come.

Dallas has had the best offensive line in the league so far this year, and most of the credit has gone to their trio of first round picks. Doug Free has received plenty of attention as well for turning into an above average right tackle after failing on the right side. The odd man out seems to be Leary, an undrafted third year player who is manning the position in between Travis Fredrick and Tyron Smith. The players around him have certainly helped, but he has done his part to make this line into the elite unit it is. An offensive line is never just a single player. It is a unit that requires cohesion and coordination to succeed. Leary deserves as much credit as anyone for what Dallas has been able to accomplish this year.

Center: Jeremy Zuttah, Baltimore Ravens

Zuttah has been the biggest change in Baltimore’s offensive line, and it is hard not to give him a great deal of credit for their improvement. Brought in as a free agent from Tampa Bay, he had the advantage of being dropped between Osemele and perennial Pro Bowler Marshall Yanda. The three of them together have been the best offensive interior in the NFL, and it is hard not to credit part of Forsett’s success to them.

Defense

Defensive End: Willie Young, Chicago Bears; DeMarcus Ware, Denver Broncos

The Bears brought in three free agent defensive linemen this season. Jared Allen was supposed to be the pass rusher, Young was supposed to stop the run, and Lamarr Houston was supposed to be a jack of all trades. Well Allen and Houston combined for 2.5 sacks over the first half of the season, 4.5 fewer than the supposed run specialist. Young has evolved into their best pass rusher this season, but I can’t imagine it will last. With Houston out and Allen ineffective, offenses will turn their protection schemes towards Young. He has seven sacks through eight games, but I would not be surprised to see him fail to reach double digits.

Ware technically plays outside linebacker, but he spends most of his time rushing the passer so I have no trouble slotting him at defensive end. A future Hall of Famer, it seems strange to put him on this list. But after last season the common perception was that his career as a dominant player was over, a perception that now seems painfully idiotic. Ware struggled with injuries in 2013, but he has been remarkably healthy every other year in his career. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he came back so effectively, especially with Von Miller rushing from the other side. The two of them will continue tearing quarterbacks apart for the rest of the season as Denver rides a top five offense and defense to a comfortable top seed in the AFC.

Defensive Tackle: Tom Johnson, Minnesota Vikings; Brett Keisel, Pittsburgh Steelers

Some quick facts about Johnson. He is thirty years old and had a total of five career sacks coming into this season. He has spent time in the NFL, NFL Europe, the Arena Football League, and the Canadian Football League. He is making less than $1 million this year and is not signed through next season. He is second among NFL defensive tackles with five sacks despite playing less than 40 percent of the Vikings defensive snaps. He has become a pass rushing force seemingly out of nowhere, and while it is exciting and a lot of fun, I can’t imagine it will last. With the development of Sharrif Floyd over the past few weeks it seems likely that Johnson’s snap totals will fall even further. He still has a role to play with this team, but there is no way in hell he gets another five sacks before the season ends.

Keisel should not be in the league this year. His contract expired at the end of last season, and no team showed any interest in 36 year old defensive linemen. The Steelers signed him out of desperation two weeks before the season, and he has been one of their best defensive players so far. He has earned a stable role for the rest of the season in a rotation with rookie Stephon Tuitt, and as Pittsburgh’s defense gets healthy his contributions will only matter more. The Steelers haven’t been great on defense so far this year, but with surprise players like Keisel contributing they have a chance to pull things together down the stretch.

Linebacker: Larry Foote, Arizona Cardinals; Brandon Marshall, Denver Broncos; Rolando McClain, Dallas Cowboys

Foote has bounced around the league for a long time, somehow always finding his way to a starting role thanks to the desperation of the teams that sign him. It happened again this year in Arizona, where he signed as a veteran backup only for starter Daryl Washington to be suspended the full length of the season. The Cardinals reluctantly plugged Foote into the starting role, and he has rewarded them by playing at the highest level of his career. The Cardinals have weathered brutal injuries across their defense and continue to play at an extremely high level. I give most of the credit to defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, who has taken a player like Foote and turned him into an above average starter. Bowles has done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt, and I would not bet against anyone who is put out there in his system.

The big names on Denver’s defense made it clear before the season that this would be a unit to be reckoned with. Von Miller, TJ Ward, Aqib Talib, Terrence Knighton. The big names were expected to be the core of a top ten defense, and so far they have been. But no one expected this defense to perform as well as it has, because no one expected them to receive this much production from a player like Marshall. He stepped in when Danny Trevathan went down, and he has played phenomenally well in the weakest part of Denver’s defense. It certainly helps to have this sort of talent around him, but he is still performing at a level much higher than we could have expected from a journeyman backup.

McClain is one of the best stories of the NFL so far this year. A former top ten pick of the Raiders, his career turned out as wretchedly awful as could have been imagined. He was released after only three years in Oakland and was picked up by the Ravens, only for him to announce his retirement. It looked like everything was over for him, the highlight of his career being the photograph taken below.

A year after the Ravens signed him, they traded his rights to Dallas along with a seventh round pick in exchange for a sixth round pick. Everyone laughed at the time, assuming that the excellent management of the Ravens had screwed over the typically incompetent Cowboys. No one expected that he would play this season, much less that he would be one of the best defensive players on one of the best teams in the league. The talent has always been there with McClain, and the year away from football may have finally gotten his head right. One good half season does not make up for three years of ineptitude, but I think there is a chance that he could man the middle of Dallas’s defense for years to come.

Cornerback: Vontae Davis, Indianapolis Colts; Rashean Mathis, Detroit Lions

Davis has been highly thought of for the past couple seasons, and there is a good chance that he would have made a ranking of the top ten cornerbacks in the league coming into the season. But there has always been a streak of inconsistency in his play, alternating dominant games with performances that deserve benching. So far this year he has managed to harness some consistency, and it is the primary reason for Indianapolis’s surprising success on defense. Roethlisberger’s dominating performance against them this past weekend likely would not have happened had Davis not left the game in the first quarter. Injuries could slow him down the rest of the season, and his inconsistent tendencies could return at any time. But so far this year he has a case to make as the best cornerback in the league.

Quick question: who out there knew that Mathis was still in the league before this year? I certainly didn’t, and I get the feeling that several of Detroit’s coaches probably didn’t either. Their cornerback situation was an utter disaster coming into the season, and they ended up putting Mathis on the field opposite Darius Slay out of pure necessity. It’s been six or seven years since he was any good, and at least three since he was at all relevant. But he has held his own on the outside this year, thanks to Detroit’s dominant front four and solid linebacker corps. It will be interesting to see how he holds up if Detroit ever goes against someone capable of handling their pass rush, but to this point that hasn’t been a concern.

Safety: Malcolm Jenkins, Philadelphia Eagles; Aaron Williams, Buffalo Bills

Jenkins is one of those first round picks that is difficult to judge. He certainly isn’t a bust, spending several years as a competent starting safety in New Orleans. But he can’t be considered a success either, not when his team drafted him hoping to receive a perennial Pro Bowler. He is something in the middle, reliable until someone better comes along. For the Saints that someone was Jairus Byrd, and they shed no tears when Jenkins signed with Philadelphia. He has cooled off some since his hot start with the Eagles, but he is still playing at a higher level than he ever did in New Orleans. He is the best player in Philadelphia’s secondary and a major part of keeping them afloat as their offense has struggled. I think he is still the player he was in New Orleans, but this brief hot stretch was something I don’t think anyone saw coming.

We go from the player who was replaced by Byrd to the player that replaced Byrd. Williams played alongside Byrd in Buffalo for a few years as a more physical, in the box style safety before moving to a deep coverage role this season. He has filled the departed free agent’s shoes admirably, holding opposing passing games in check long enough for Buffalo’s explosive defensive line to close in on the quarterback. His performance has helped compensate for the loss of one of their best defensive players, and it is the crucial piece behind their surprising start to the season.