Five most unexpected storylines in 2023 NFL season Texans are fun Tush Push automatic only for Eagles

Five most unexpected storylines in 2023 NFL season Texans are fun Tush Push automatic only for Eagles

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One of the reasons why the National Football League is America's most popular sports league -- accounted for 82 of the United States' 100 most-watched TV broadcasts in 2022 -- is because it's hard to know what could happen next. Since 1990, at least four new teams have made the postseason each year. Given the churn of contenders year-to-year, it makes sense to expect the unexpected when it comes to profe sional football. Here is a look at five things that have occurred so far through the first seven weeks of the 2023 season that may not have been on many people's radar back in the preseason. HOU QB #7 CMP%59.6YDs1660TD9INT1YD/Att7.79 When a team is drafting near the top of an -- like the Houston Texans Wyatt Ray Jersey were last April with the second overall pick thanks to their 3-13-1 record -- it's expected for that team to struggle out of the gate. That hasn't really been the case for No. 2 pick C.J. Stroud or his Texans. Houston is 3-3 to start 2023 thanks to winning three of their past four games following an 0-2 start. If they defeat top overall pick and the on Sunday, Houston would be above. 500 for the first time since Week 2 of the 2021 season, snapping the longest active drought in the NFL for not having a winning record.Much of the early succe s is thanks to Stroud, whose nine touchdown pa ses to only one interception has him leading the league in touchdown-to-interception ratio through seven weeks. His 1,660 pa sing yards are the eighth-most through six games in NFL history, and he started his NFL career with an all-time record 191 pa sing attempts before his first interception.C.J. Stroud's notable NFL rankings this seasonNFL RankPa s Yards/Att7.84thTD-INT9-11stPa ser Rating96.410thStroud has also stood out on on third down, aka "the money down," early on: he has five consecutive games with a pa sing touchdown on third down, the longest such streak by any rookie since at least 1991. The Texans rebuild could end up being much shorter than expected thanks to Stroud's immediate impact. PHI QB #1 CMP%67.2YDs1821TD9INT8YD/Att7.46 PHI C #62 There was plenty of chatter this past offseason about the NFL potentially banning the reigning NFC champion ' quarterback sneak formation, now well known as the "Tush Push" because multiple players line up behind quarterback and help shove him forward for first downs and touchdowns. According to the CBS Sports research department, the Eagles were 4-for-4 in converting on it on Sunday in their "Sunday Night Football" victory over the , running their tally to 41-of-44 over the last two years, a 93.2% conversion rate. There aren't many things in life more certain than the Eagles picking up the yards they need to gain on this play.The unexpected part of this play is that the rest of the league hasn't come close to experiencing the same succe s when running it: the next closest team has only 11 conversions since 2022 while in 2023, the rest of the league has whiffed 13 times when using it. The NFL is nothing if not a copycat league, and the other 31 teams not having similar production on a play that looks so easy to execute is mind-boggling, especially after the rest of the league had months to study and practice it in the offseason."Push Play" Succe s Rates Around The NFL This Season:Eagles: 17/20 - 85.0%Everyone Else: 33/46 - 71.7% LAR WR #17 TAR82REC58REC YDs752REC TD2FL0 With All-Pro wide receiver mi sing the first four games of the 2023 season, plenty of targets were up for grabs in the Rams offense. That didn't nece sarily mean one player was going to be able to step up and fill the void left by his absenc, but shockingly, that's exactly what has happened as Puka Nacua's 58 catches are the most in the league through the first seven weeks, making him the first rookie with at least a share of the NFL lead in receptions through seven weeks since Eagles tight end in 1988.Nacua, a 2023 fifth-round pick out of BYU, has 752 receiving yards through his first seven games the second-most by a player in NFL history, trailing only wide receiver 754 in the 2021. With just a single catch against the in Week 8, Nacua will take sole po se sion of the record for the most catches in a player's first eight career NFL games in league history. His Jessie Bates III Jersey 58 are currently tied with running back 58 that he had through the first eight games of his 2018 Offensive Rookie of the Year season in which he ended up leading the NFL with 2,028 scrimmage yards. Turning a fifth-round rookie into potentially the heir apparent to Kupp right away is downright unexpected. Even with Kupp in the lineup once again, Nacua is still balling out: he recorded 154 receiving yards on eight catches against the in Week 7. SEA QB #14 CMP%65.2YDs1749TD9INT7YD/Att6.83 When the hired a sociate head coach and offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy away from the champion , it was understandable there would be some growing pains. Having first-time starting quarterback Sam Howell, a fifth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, on pace to take a beating not seen since the Texans' inaugural season back in 2002 after entering the league as an expansion franchise was not on the 2023 season bingo card.Former Texans quarterback David Carr, the first overall pick in the 2002 NFL Draft, was treated to expansion team experience as a rookie: he was sacked an NFL-record 76 times in 16 games. Fast forward to 2023 and second-year quarterback, a fifth-round pick in the 2022, is on pace to leave that figure in the dust. Howell has absorbed an NFL-high 40 sacks in seven games this season.quarterbackis the second-most sacked quarterback in the league this season with fewer than 30 sacks taken, 28 to be exact.Howell is on pace to be sacked 97 times this season, which would beat Carr's record by 21 sacks. Sacks are a statistic that a quarterback can control even with a shoddy offensive line. The38.7% quarterback pre sure rate allowed ranks 24th in the NFL, not great, but it's not too far from average. Therank 16th in quarterback pre sure percentage allowed at 35.1%. Howell's average time to throw of 3.05 seconds is the Michael Thomas Jersey ninth-longest in the NFL, perhaps calling into question his anticipation, instincts and pocket awarene s. Those questions only intensified after Howell took six sacks in a 14-7 lo s at the Giants in Week 7, a team that had recorded just five sacks in 2023 through the season's first six weeks. Howell might not end up being the guy for the long haul in Washington, but this level of futility when it comes to keeping their quarterback upright is astounding. NO QB #4 CMP%63.9YDs1600TD6INT4YD/Att6.27 Derek Carr simply wasn't equipped to play complimentary football with the . During his nine seasons with the Raiders from 2014-2022, they allowed 26.2 points per game, the most in the NFL in that span. Yet, Carr was productive, finishing his tenure as the franchise's all-time leader in pa sing yards (35,222) and pa sing touchdowns (217). He even set NFL records for the most the most upset wins (33), game-winning drives (33) and fourth-quarter comebacks (28) by any quarterback through nine NFL seasons since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. After being released this past offseason, Carr signed a four-year, $150 million contract to be the Saints' new starting quarterback. The move paired him with a team that has perennially been a top-10 scoring defense -- New Orleans had a top-10 scoring defense in 2020, 2021 and 2022 -- and 2023 is no different. They are allowing 18.1 points per game in 2023 (the seventh-fewest in NFL). One would think Carr would thrive having the support of that caliber of defense alongside of him, but nope. Carr is instead averaging the fewest yards per pa s attempt (6.3) since his 2014 rookie season when he averaged 5.5 yards per pa s attempt. His 82.8 pa ser rating in 2023 also currently ranks as his worst since his rookie year when he totaled a 76.6 pa ser rating. He is coming off of consecutive defeats with over 300 pa sing yards on 50 or more pa sing attempts. Throwing to , a second-year first-round pick wideout whose 1,042 receiving yards as a rookie in 2022 were the second-most in his cla s, wide receiver , the all-time record-holder for most catches in a single season (149 in 2019) and Pro Bowl running back should be enough for Carr to thrive or at the very least play like an above average starting quarterback.Instead, he and the Saints have lost four of their last five games after a 2-0 start, which has them sitting at 3-4 and in third place in the NFC South. If Carr doesn't turn things around soon, the Saints front office may start to have buyer's remorse.
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