The first month of the NFL season presents many illusions and distortions. Preseason bleeds into the regular season with so few veterans taking part in exhibitions, and it takes time for new rosters to gel and for new coaches to truly get a handle on what they signed up for. September is a month of discovery and snap judgements and overreactions, to be sure.
But September is complete, and teams are beginning to play international games in earnest, and we aren’t that far removed from the bye weeks starting. We’re only about a month from the trade deadline, so, well, things are also starting to get real. Seasons are slipping away. Some clubs that were generating a lot of preseason hype already look like the worst versions of themselves and some upstarts who generated very little attention are possibly making power moves.
Some of it is real and some of it is fake. And we’re here to sort through it all and try to make sense of it. These teams are being talked about around the league for various reasons, and some are revealing their true colors and others not so much.
Minnesota Vikings – Real
They aren’t going to run the table, but they are going to win a lot of games and since Kevin O’Connell took over as head coach there, they have won a lot of games except for when JJ McCarthy was at quarterback. And they went ahead and got that potential distraction out of there and alleviated any further drama with him by dealing him to the Giants. That’s a win.
They’ve already won games with a backup QB twice, including when he had to replace starter Kyler Murray in-game. Then they won an ugly game on the road with Carson Wentz having to start, and then Murray comes back and starts and finishes and wins a game. That’s a lot. But it’s not the real reason they are going to the playoffs. The defense is their super power, and defensive coordinator Brian Flores’s lawsuit against the league can’t prevent him from being a head coach.
He more than merits another shot running his own team. “He’s the best in the NFL right now,” one advance scout told me of Flores’s standing among all defensive coordinators.
Buffalo Bills – Real
Buffalo is going to run away with the AFC East and has a chance to come out of Week 4 with a three-game lead. “I think they probably are the best team in the AFC right now,” longtime former NFL GM Marty Hurney said. And it’s the defense here that is also getting a lot of attention. The defensive linen has been transformed; changing their front was a very big deal, and Greg Rousseau looks exactly like the edge menace they’ve needed for the entire Josh Allen tenure.
Allen playing so poorly yet Buffalo still winning was a very good sign to Hurney’s trained eye, and they can run the ball and still beat you from behind when need be. Could be the one seed when you think about how much tougher the other divisions are in this conference and what that means for inter-division games.
Los Angeles Chargers – Real
They really are this bad. Quarterback Justin Herbert is taking more heat than ever before and rightfully so. The offensive line might not be great, and the run game is in fits and starts with longtime coordinator Greg Roman leaving the building. So what? Win ugly.
They didn’t bring in Mike McDaniel to run the offense so Herbert would have to sustain drives with wild scrambles and RPO runs, but guess what? That's probably what they need and that was Roman’s forte. I don’t know anyone who thinks they are getting off the mat in the stout AFC West. “They’ve (screwed),” said one longtime personnel exec who keeps a close eye on them. “They might not win until after their bye.” That’s Week 7, folks.
Houston Texans – Fake
They will get healthier on offense. They almost have to. CJ Stroud not taking $55 million a year might be “dodging a bullet,” as one GM put it to me, but he also isn’t playing poorly at all. When he gets his playmakers back, with this defense, we expect a second-half surge.
Now, they have to win a damn football game, we absolutely get that. Actually, they need to beat the Cowboys and the Titans and get to 2-3 by the time they face the Jaguars. People we talk to around the league believe this group is getting than their record and aren’t set to be buried. But, like, they need to beat Dallas this weekend.
Las Vegas Raiders – Real But Fake
Let me explain — this is a real NFL operation now that will not roll over and will not beat themselves week after week and will have a plan and be ready to play. They will give the Chiefs a game in Week 4, we suspect, and veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins will keep them competitive, and he executes Klint Kubiak’s system at a masterful level and is beyond comfortable in it …
But Fernando Mendoza is going to get a run this season, and the level of competition is jumping up a few notches and people are starting to take them seriously. So, like, they might not go on another three-game winning streak this season. But I could see them finishing with more wins than loses, which would be a massive accomplishment for any Raiders coach, let alone a rookie coach trying to put the franchise back together after Pete Carroll and Co. shattered it.
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