The quirkiest clique in the National Football League right now has a membership of seven that is set to dwindle further, probably to zero before the season ends. It is the Can’t Stop Winning Club, in theory a blue-blooded enclave, and a circle that you want to stay in for as long as possible. Yet staying unconquered this season has coincidentally become a recipe for unscripted drama and the path of the seven who still haven’t tasted defeat ranges from magnificent to utterly mysterious. The NFL is competitive, unpredictable and just downright difficult enough that the quest for a perfect campaign is usually a brief one. This time, the remaining group of teams still waiting – to borrow from boxing – for their ‘0’ to go, isn’t just a house for the elite, but also a factory for the bizarre. On the topic of the unusual, there is perhaps no other place to start than with the Chicago Bears, who have been on a wild ride since mid-September and have been flawless in the purest numerical terms only. Yes, the Bears are 3-0. No, really, they are. But here are some other numbers. They have the 24th most passing yards and are tied for fifth in interceptions. They have won each game by just four points. ESPN’s win predictor rates them the 25th best team in the league. According to FOX Bet, they are just the 16th most likely contender to win the Super Bowl, at +3300, an even longer shot than the Dallas Cowboys, who have just a single, fluky win to their name. Matt Nagy’s Bears have survived countless sliding doors moments. In the opener against the Detroit Lions, they prevailed thanks to a comedic recovery of a Mitchell Trubisky fumble, a critically-timed Matthew Stafford interception and a crucial missed field goal by Matt Prater. Against the New York Giants, they managed to be marginally better than the worst team in the NFL’s most dire division. Last week, when matched with the Atlanta Falcons, another missed field goal from hobbled kicker Younghoe Koo helped them over the line. Even in victory, the performance was bad enough that Trubisky was yanked from quarterback duties, with the job handed to Super Bowl champion-slash-career backup Nick Foles. Which means Trubisky, as he ruminates over sideline purgatory this weekend, will do so knowing that he’s won more games as a starter this season than Drew Brees, Deshaun Watson, Kirk Cousins, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan and Dak Prescott – combined. “A football-crazed city that has waited forever on a championship-caliber starting quarterback … now must watch anxiously as the reset button gets pressed,” wrote the Chicago Tribune’s Dan Wiederer. Sounds like chaos, because it is. And still … 3-0. Chicago is the weirdest of all the win-win-win brigade, but there is fodder for gossip aplenty elsewhere. Even in the same division, the Green Bay Packers are living through another series of the Aaron Rodgers episodic. Rodgers was shaky enough last season to have Green Bay looking to the future by drafting Jordan Love. He’s been so good this year that you feel Love might still be gazing at squiggles on a tablet by the time the next presidential election cycle washes in. The best way to stay unbeaten is the obvious one, to keep battering your opponents into submission, which is the preferred approach of Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City and Russell Wilson in Seattle, each of whom have danced their way to the front of the MVP discussions. The worst way, by far, is to have your game cancelled because of a positive outbreak of COVID-19, which is what happened to the Tennessee Titans. That resulted in the Titans’ game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, also 3-0, to be called off with no certainty yet on a replay date. The ensuing upheaval forms the first test of both the extensive measures the NFL put in place to counteract the virus and the intricate thought it put into the scheduling, designed specifically so that an incident like this does not lead to undue disruption. “This is not unexpected,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said, in a letter distributed to all teams. “There will be players and staff who test positive during the season. Each of us has a special responsibility to keep others safe and healthy.” Finally, there is the sparkling story from one of the league’s least glamorous locations. Buffalo gets unfairly picked on, a watchword for a grim road destination, which does a disservice to both the place and its wonderful citizens. The football being played in Buffalo is anything but dour and is a surprising tale that should be getting more national attention. The Bills playbook has been opened up to third-year QB Josh Allen, who is hungrily grasping the opportunity. Allen is playing showbiz football, his accurate cannon of an arm giving defenses no place to hide, especially with new receiver Stefon Diggs providing a formidable target and an even better magnet for space-opening defensive attention. No one saw Buffalo’s surge coming, especially the locals, who are loving every minute while reflecting on the cruelty of not being able to see this long-awaited lift in person. “Buffalonians like to see themselves in their sports heroes,” Erik Brady, contributing columnist for the Buffalo News, told me via telephone. “That’s what they see in Josh Allen, a player who was overlooked coming out of high school and who is now coming into his own in a city that’s doing the same. “The excitement is through the roof. It is not just that they’re winning but they are really fun to watch.” It is more fun being 3-0 than having any other record, even though there are different ways of getting there. No one expects to see the Bears stick around in this kind of company, with the Can’t Stop Winning membership committee seemingly poised to stamp their expulsion at a moment’s notice. Of those likeliest to keep going, the Chiefs and the Seahawks would seem to have the greatest claims. On Sunday, Seattle takes on the Miami Dolphins at 1 p.m. ET on FOX, while Kansas City hosts the New England Patriots in the 4:25 p.m. ET time slot on CBS. “It will always be a self-inflicted wound when you can’t stop the opponent and you’re asking your QB to throw five touchdowns,” FOX Sports’ Greg Jennings told First Things First, wondering if Seattle’s new found defensive difficulties will give Wilson too much work to do. “Russell Wilson has the most pressure on him. It is unsustainable.” Sustainability is a fluid concept when it comes to NFL performance. Even for the teams flexing their muscles the strongest, there is no such thing as a guarantee on any given weekend. The drama? That’s a far easier promise to make. Here’s what others have said … Bill Barnwell, ESPN: “Nobody would argue that the Bears are on a level with the league’s top 3-0 teams, but at the end of the day, those wins are banked. Nine wins probably gets a team into a 14-team playoff, and even if the Bears revert toward preseason expectations and play something close to .500 football the rest of the way, a 6-7 finish probably gets them in as a wild-card team.” Emmanuel Acho, FOX Sports: “Nobody is going to be able to stop the Chiefs. They are so much better than everybody else. There are about 15 teams in the league that even if they play poor against, they will still win. Then there are about another 13-14 teams that they have to play good against to beat. And then there are about three or four teams that they need to play really well against to beat. So on any given Sunday, the Chiefs can play average-to-below average, and still win.” Clay Travis, FOX Bet Live: “The Packers have scored 122 points since the season began, the most points that have been scored by a Packers franchise through the first three weeks EVER. It feels like Aaron Rodgers took legitimate offense when they went out and drafted Jordan Love and tried to send the message to him ‘hey, we’re moving on from you.’ Aaron Rodgers is playing out of his mind right now.” |
