Up is down and down is up in the NFL in 2024.
Three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes is playing mediocre football and journeyman Sam Darnold morphed into a franchise quarterback for a Minnesota Vikings team that went from a team in transition to a team contending for a division title. Those are just two of a number of eye-popping occurrences throughout the NFL at roughly the halfway point of the season. Let's take a look at those two topics and three others that are making their way into being major, yet unexpected storylines.
Patrick Mahomes is off to the worst start of his career, playing mediocre football
Three-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the best quarterback alive, is playing mediocre football. That's probably the most jarring sentence in football these days. He has six touchdown passes to eight interceptions through six games, all victories by the Kansas City Chiefs. That makes Mahomes just the second quarterback in the last 30 years with more interceptions than passing touchdowns in a 6-0 start with the other being 2015 Peyton Manning, per CBS Sports Research. Manning threw seven touchdowns to 10 interceptions that year in which his arm completely gave out as he aged while dealing with a serious neck injury. That season was Manning's last in the NFL.
Let's look at a few more things that illustrate just how truly stunning Mahomes' play in 2024 has been. Last week was the first time in his career that he finished a game with more interceptions (eight) than passing touchdowns (six) on the season since the end of his rookie year in 2017 when he had one interception and no passing touchdowns after his first career start in Week 17 at the Denver Broncos. This season, Mahomes has the same amount of touchdown passes as New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (six) and one fewer than both Carolina Panthers quarterback Andy Dalton (seven) and Indianapolis Colts quarterback Joe Flacco (seven), who has only played in three games. His six to eight touchdown-to-interceptions is the worst among the NFL's 24 quarterbacks who have started all of their team's games this season.
| Patrick Mahomes Career Rank Through First 6 Games of Season, 2024 Season | Career Ranks | |
|---|---|---|
W-L | 6-0 | Best |
Pass YPG | 231.5 | Worst |
Pass TD | 6 | Worst |
INT | 8 | T-Worst |
Passer Rating | 82.5 | Worst |
Sure, the Chiefs don't have the world's greatest receiving core outside of an aging Travis Kelce (35-years-old). Kansas City planned to have Marquise "Hollywood" Brown, but a preseason shoulder injury has him sidelined through at least the entire regular season. Rashee Rice suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 4, which led to the Chiefs bringing back a late-career JuJu Smith-Schuster, but he suffered a hamstring injury in Week 7 that already has him ruled out for Week 8.
The Chiefs have attempted to address this issue by trading a conditional fifth-round pick to the Tennessee Titans for a 32-year-old DeAndre Hopkins on Wednesday. That could help lift Mahomes' game slightly, but it's still shocking to see the league's best quarterback playing mediocre football.
Rookie QB Jayden Daniels has Commanders en route to make worst to first rebound in NFC East
Prior to the start of the 2024 season, it was common thought that the NFC East was a two-team division between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles, the last two division winners. However, the 2023 last-place finishing Washington Commanders are crashing the party and out to a 5-2 start. That has them currently in first place and out to their best start since 2018.
The reason why is because No. 2 overall draft pick quarterback Jayden Daniels is playing like he should be the second rookie ever to win an NFL MVP award alongside Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown (1957). He is the only quarterback in NFL history with a completion percentage of at least 75% (75.6%), 200 or more passing yards per game (201.4) and 50 or more rushing yards per game (53.1) in any seven-game span. Daniels' seven-game span just so happens to be his first seven career games. Daniels' 75.6% leads the NFL so far this season, and if he ends the year as the 2024 leader, he will be the first rookie to lead the league in completion percentage since the AFL/NFL merger. Daniels' 75.6% completion percentage is also the second-highest in a player's first seven games all-time, minimum 150 pass attempts, and behind only Drew Brees' 77.4% rate in 2018.
That production has played a massive role in Washington averaging 31.1 points per game, tied for the most in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. No team has finished with a top-two scoring offense since the 1970 merger with a rookie quarterback starting at least half of their games, but with Daniels, Washington fans have something to be really excited about immediately. That's unexpected.
Sam Darnold looks like a franchise QB
Sam Darnold has been known as a bust since being selected third overall in the 2018 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. He's had stops with the Carolina Panthers (2021-2022) and the San Francisco 49ers (2023) after three struggle-filled seasons with the Jets (2018-2020). He signed a one-year, $10 million contract in free agency this offseason to be a bridge/mentor for 10th overall pick J.J McCarthy, but when McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason, that opened for Darnold to have the entire 2024 season as his last chance to show he can be an NFL starter.
Darnold has seized the moment by playing like a top 10 NFL quarterback through seven weeks of the 2024 season, and Minnesota is off to a 5-1 start.
| Sam Darnold 2024 season, NFL Ranks | QB Rank | |
|---|---|---|
Comp Pct | 66.5% | 12th |
Pass Yards/Attempt | 8.4 | 5th |
Pass TD | 12 | T-5th |
Passer Rating | 104.0 | 7th |
Surprisingly, he's making the Vikings have to consider whether or not they want to re-sign him to a multi-year deal instead of just handing the reins over to McCarthy. That's a surprising turn of events.
Packers lead NFL in takeaways, are a top 10 defense
The Green Bay Packers were one of the more passive defenses in the NFL in 2023, their final year under former defensive coordinator Joe Barry. Green Bay had 18 takeaways all of 2023, tied for 23rd out of 32 teams. Just seven games in under new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, and Green Bay has been much more aggressive. They now lead the league with 17 takeaways in seven games, and free agent acquisition safety Xavier McKinney leads the league in both interceptions (five) and takeaways (six).
McKinney became the first player since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger to secure an interception in each of his first five games with a team, and he has already tied his single season career-high of five that he set back in 2021. Green Bay's defense crumbling at in opportune moments has typically been what has doomed the Packers in postseasons past, but that isn't the case thus far in Green Bay's 5-2 start this season.
Josh Allen has kicked the turnover bug
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen drew comparisons to Hall of Famer Brett Favre for years because they both are known for having a cannon for a right arm as well as a turnover problem. Since entering the NFL in 2018, Allen ranks third in the league in passing touchdowns (179), but in his first six seasons (2018-2023), he led the league with 78 interceptions.
Now, Allen has played immaculate football with 12 passing touchdowns an no interceptions to start 2024. That makes him only the third quarterback in NFL history with 12 or more passing touchdowns and no interceptions through the first seven games of a season, joining Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles (2013) and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith (2017). Allen's consecutive games without an interception is the longest streak by a starting quarterback in Bills history. During his first season of the 2020's without Stefon Diggs, one would've thought Allen would have had a tougher time avoiding interceptions when throwing to less-experienced receivers -- excluding Amari Cooper whom the Bills acquired via trade with the Cleveland Browns in Week 7. Surprisingly, that simply hasn't been the case.
