Then there were three

Thank you for Entering the Gates of Helton, I am indeed Kevin Helton. We are down to just three undefeated teams in the NFL now. With that said once you look at the three teams that are undefeated some of you might be surprised. I know I am.

First, we start with the Denver Broncos; many say why would you be shocked by their 4-0 start? I mean they did, in fact, win the Superbowl fairly easily last year. Yes, this is true. However, not only did they lose 1 starting Quarterback for them, they lost both their starting QB's from last year. As we all know Peyton Manning after a long and great career, decided to hang up the cleats and retire. Their other QB who started for the Denver Broncos last year Brock Osweiler decided to pick up and move down to Houston to play for the Texans. So this left the Broncos with second year QB (who by the way only had 1 snap in the NFL and that was a kneel down last year) Trevor Siemian to take over for the soon to be Hall of Fame QB Manning. He did so and did a fairly good job, putting up 824 yards, 6 Touchdowns, with 3 Interceptions and finishing with a QB Rating of 99.6 before getting injured. Then that left the reigns to the athletic rookie who many assume is the future of Denver (due to the aggressive jump in the draft to take him). So they loose 2 proven QB's and they now have 2 inexperienced QB's behind Center, and they are an impressive 4-0. The reason this isn't super shocking in the Denver Defense and their no-fly zone. Denver has been able to dominant on the defensive end which has taken a lot of pressure off their young Quarterbacks.

The other two teams are a little easier to scratch your head when saying they are undefeated. The Minnesota Vikings, after losing their franchise QB in Teddy Bridgewater and arguably the best Running Back in the game Adrian Peterson. In their despair, they made a bold trade acquiring Sam Bradford, and they are getting out of him what the Rams and the Eagles hoped they would when drafting and trading for the Oklahoma QB. One could make the argument that the defense of Minnesota with the Interceptions and forced fumbles help to make this a 4-0 team. Lastly the Philadelphia Eagles, which is probably the biggest surprise. Granted they are 3-0 due to the early bye week, and I don't want to discount who they played, in the Cleveland Browns, and Chicago Bears (two very struggling teams) because they made an excellent Pittsburgh team look foolish. Mostly this is in part of their gunslinger rookie, and number 2 pick overall Carson Wentz. In his 3 games, he's thrown for 769 yards, 66 Completed passes, 5 Touchdowns, with zero Interceptions, and this was supposed to be a kid who shouldn't be starting for about 2 years so he can learn the speed of the game. His 103.8 QB Rating ranks 8th among all QB's in the NFL. I don't know if I'm going to make a bold prediction that either Minnesota or Philly will make a deep run or any run at all in the playoffs, but it is impressive what they have done so far.




Reference:

LLC, N.E. (2016) NFL stats: Player. Available at: http://www.nfl.com/stats/player?seasonId=2016&seasonType=REG&Submit=Go (Accessed: 4 October 2016).

In-text citations:

• (LLC, 2016)