Pleasant surprises from the NFL season so far: Brock Purdy for MVP and actual Raiders skill | NFL

LLast season ended with a Super Bowl that neither team – the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots – were expected to participate in. Before that, we had a 44-year-old grandpa returning from a four-season layoff to bring unexpected joy to the Indianapolis Colts during an otherwise miserable season, while the Chicago Bears and Jacksonville Jaguars bounced back from poor 2024 seasons to win their divisions.

It’s early to tell which surprises will be the most fun to remember this time around, but here are four to watch out for as things progress.

Brock Purdy is playing at MVP level

Under an obscure Santa Clara rule, we’re legally obligated to point out that Purdy has surpassed his status as the last pick in the 2022 draft. But last season, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback was caught up in his team’s horrific injury scare (which continues unabated), missing eight games. Purdy has always played well when healthy, but no one was really prepared for how good he would be in 2026.

The 49ers are 3-0 despite all the injuries, and Purdy is the main reason why. He completed 60 of 83 passes (72.3%) for 789 yards (9.5 yards per attempt), nine touchdowns, one interception, no sacks and a passer rating of 133.1, which leads the league quite comfortably (in second place is Drew Lock, who we’ll talk about later).

Plus, Purdy does all this without the superhuman traits attributed to Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. He’s a good runner, has an above average arm and moves well in the pocket, but Purdy really beats opponents with his mind. He reads defenses like they’re third-grade first-day stuff, and his ability to throw with anticipation (“throw his receivers open” in football parlance) is unmatched. No matter who is healthy enough to block or catch his passes, the big plays come in droves.

That’s why everyone is on the Purdy train right now, and as long as they can avoid the curse of the substation, it should continue.

Backup quarterbacks save games for teams in need

It’s not just the starting quarterbacks who improve the situation of their injury-ravaged teams. 2026 has already been a banner year for backups.

The defending champion Seattle Seahawks lost starter Sam Darnold five games into the new season due to a glute injury. Backup Drew Lock, who has rarely looked like a starting quarterback in an NFL career dating back to 2019, transformed into exactly that in Weeks 1 and 2. The Seahawks beat the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals with Lock, who completed 35 of 48 passes (72.9 percent) for 422 yards (8.8 YPA), four touchdowns, no interceptions and a career rating of passer rating, a league-best 127.3 – yes, even higher than Purdy’s 125.6 in those two games.

Darnold returned to the field for Seattle’s Week 3 game against the Washington Commanders, but the Seahawks encountered another example of this phenomenon when they were brought down by Marcus Mariota. Starter Jayden Daniels suffered a dislocated left elbow in Week 2 against the Dallas Cowboys, and Mariota was back — he had started eight games for the Commanders in 2025 when Daniels had a similar elbow injury — but he had never played like this. In Washington’s shock 33-31 win over Seattle, Mariota completed 19 of 31 passes (61.3%) for 183 yards (5.9 YPA), three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 110.0 passer rating. Not as impressive until you consider that from Week 1 of the 2025 season to Week 2 of the 2026 season, Seattle’s defense had allowed a cumulative passer rating of 77.8.

Yet it was up to Case Keenum of the Chicago Bears to write the ultimate save story of the new season. Against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night, Chicago’s 38-year-old third-stringer (behind injured starter Caleb Williams and so-called No. 2 Tyson Bagent) completed 24 of 34 passes (70.6%) for 247 yards (7.3 YPA), two touchdowns, no interceptions and a 110.8 passer rating.

Not bad for a guy who hadn’t started an NFL game since December 2023, when he played with the Houston Texans. The delicious part is that Keenum had his family at Soldier Field, which led to a fascinating discussion about whether Keenum’s kids would rather watch game highlights on Tuesday or return to their usual staple, Bluey.

We think it was a mix of both.

Las Vegas Raiders

The Raiders haven’t made the playoffs since the 2021 season, their second in Las Vegas. Before that, they hadn’t made the playoffs since the 2016 season, when they were the Oakland Raiders. And the franchise hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2002 season, seven years after returning to Oakland from Los Angeles.

No matter where they are, the Raiders have been miserable for most of this century. But, based on early feedback from new head coach Klint Kubiak, that could be about to change. Kubiak’s new Raiders are one of five undefeated teams remaining (the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, Minnesota Vikings and 49ers are the others), and they’re doing it on both sides of the ball. And we haven’t even seen Fernando Mendoza, the top pick in the 2026 draft, on the field for the Raiders yet, as veteran Kirk Cousins ​​is playing at a surprisingly high level.

The Raiders rank ninth in DVOA, FTN’s efficiency metric, after ranking 31st in 2025. They’ve already won as many games as last season, and between Kubiak’s brilliance as an offensive player and what defensive coordinator Rob Leonard has done with a group of relative no-names (with the exception of edge rusher Maxx Crosby), few teams have better coaching than the Raiders right now.

When was the last time someone said that? Kubiak is only the third coach in franchise history to start his first season 3-0. Before him, there was Bill Callahan in 2002, and the legendary John Madden in 1969.

Of course, we don’t actually know what Kubiak’s Raiders will do over time. This could go either way. Callahan lasted only two seasons with the team after following an appearance in Super Bowl XXXVII with a 4-12 season in 2003, while Madden was one of the most successful coaches in the NFL. But as it stands, Kubiak coaches his guys as well as anyone in the league.

The Minnesota Vikings’ unconventional defense

Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is absolutely one of them. While most coaches prefer to treat opposing quarterbacks like they’re something to be taken out of the quiver in obvious passing situations, Flores prefers to take the entire plane out of the black box.

The former Bill Belichick assistant in New England, who also served as head coach of the Miami Dolphins from 2019-2021, is going to do things his way, and it usually works. Since becoming the Vikings’ DC in 2023, Flores’ defenses have led the NFL in blitz rate every season, and they’re hitting an insane 66.4% in 2026 so far.

How far from the network is it? The Chicago Bears rank second in blitz rate…at 39.8%.

So why don’t more coaches blitz more often? Because when you send extra defenders after the quarterback, the quarterback can exploit obvious openings in coverage. But Flores has answers to that, too. The Vikings have also led the league every year since 2023 in simulated pressures, in which a defense appears to go on blitz and then multiple defenders go into coverage after the snap.

So you end up with a playbook in which the Vikings are generally among the best in the NFL in runs of six or more and three or less.

In less capable hands, this type of binary approach wouldn’t work as well — not only because opposing coaches would figure out how to attack him, but also because few other defensive coaches have Flores’ understanding of what his players do and how best to use them. The Vikings team is full of players who wholeheartedly embrace Flores’ approach, because they like it and because it works.

The Vikings have the best defense in the NFL according to DVOA by a comfortable margin, and the team would be even more of a juggernaut if their offense didn’t rank 30th. As brilliant as he is, Flores is not capable of manufacturing a quarterback for head coach Kevin O’Connell. Flores is more of a quarterback destroyer than a quarterback creator.