With the NFL going into the second half of the regular season, some teams have made complete turnarounds, while for others, it’s more of the same.
The defending champion Kansas City Chiefs are still the Kansas City Chiefs, and ran roughshod over the league. The team currently has the best record in the league at 9-0 and still haven’t lost a game, according to ESPN.
The Chiefs are doing this without its running back Isiah Pacheco, who has been out since Week 2 with a fibula injury, according to ESPN 2024 NFL Standing statistics.
New Orleans Saints started hot, but lost momentum early. The team did look good in the first couple of weeks of the season with quarterback Derek Carr passing over 400 yards and winning in his first two games, according to his ESPN player profile.
The Saints have only won one game since, losing seven straight games before beating the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
Carr threw his season high of 269 yards moving New Orleans to No. 3 in the National Football Conference South, according to the same source.
Despite Atlanta’s loss, Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins has turned the team around from last season after they got eliminated from playoff contention.
The Falcons went from 10-7 in the 2023-24 season to a winning record of 6-4 at the midway point.
The Falcons’ losing season in 2023-24 was steered primarily by current Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Desmond Ridder, who had a quarterback rating of only 40.8, according to his ESPN player profile.
A quarterback rating is a statistic that measures the efficiency of a quarterback on a scale of 0-100 with 50 being an average quarterback and 75 being a Pro Bowl-level quarterback, according to ESPN.
Based on this statistic, Ridder was an inefficient quarterback for Atlanta last season, and signing Cousins was a major step forward.
Since his tenure in Atlanta, Cousins broke the franchise record for most passing yards in a game with 509 for Week 5 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has completed over 68% of his passes while having a quarterback rating of 57.9, according to his ESPN player profile.
Coming off a Thursday night football victory against the Cincinnati Bengals, the Baltimore Ravens have also looked good this season.
They currently have a record of 7-3 and are No. 2 in the American Football Conference North, according to the ESPN NFL Standings 2024 statistics.
One of the main reasons for this success is running back Derrick Henry.
Henry is currently leading the league in rushing yards at 1,120 with 12 touchdowns while averaging 6.1 yards per rush at 30 years old, according to his ESPN player profile.
Running backs can decline sharply at 29-years-old and it can be even sooner in some cases, according to a July, 23 2023 article from ESPN.
However, Henry continues to play at an elite level along with his teammate and quarterback Lamar Jackson.
Jackson is leading the league in quarterback rating at 76.9 while being No. 3 in passing yards at 2,669, and tied at No. 2 with 24 touchdowns with Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, according to ESPN.
Not to mention, he has 538 rushing yards and two touchdowns as a quarterback averaging 5.9 yards per rush. He is also in first place in the Most Valuable Player race, according to ESPN.
One team that deserves recognition and took me by surprise is the Washington Commanders, currently being led by rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels.
Daniels is currently No. 4 in quarterback rating at 71.2 and has only thrown two interceptions the entire season, contributing to Washington’s 7-3 record, according to his player profile on ESPN.
Thanks to Daniels’s performance this season, the team is No. 2 in the NFC East despite Sunday’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, according to the same web page.
In contrast, Washington finished last with a record of 13-4 last season, according to the same source.
Teams will be scheduled to play the second half of the season as it continues to unfold, leading into the playoffs.
