We're at the season's midway point, and we'll be handing out midseason superlatives here at Around The NFL all week. Next up: Players and teams who've been the biggest surprises of the season.
Dalton steps up play
We were supposed to have a handle on Andy Dalton by now. He was the good, but never great, NFL quarterback. The flaming-haired signal-caller came into the league a ready-made product with a defined ceiling. He was the prime meridian of NFL quarterbacks: Anyone better than Dalton was a true franchise cornerstone; if you were beneath him you couldn't be considered a long-term solution. It was called The Dalton Scale and it all put the Bengals in a sort of football purgatory. Until this year. Dalton, with no warning, put it all together in his fifth season, eliminating his maddening inconsistency streak and turning into the rock of a 7-0 Bengals team. With two months of MVP-level play, he busted The Dalton Scale of measuring his peers forever. Andy Dalton is a great quarterback. Now that is a surprise. *-- Dan Hanzus *
Breakout Ram
We expected to Todd Gurley to be good, but this good? It's doubtful that even Jeff Fisher could have dreamed Gurley would amass 566 yards in his first four career starts coming off an ACL tear. Now, he's just tearing through the NFL. Gurley leads the NFL with a 6.1 yard-per-carry average and his 115 yards per game are 22.3 yards more than the next closest running back. It's not just that he's churning out yards, it's how he's doing it. Gurley can power over lineman, juke linebackers, leap over tacklers and run away from defensive backs in the open field. He has a run of 48-plus yards in each of his first four starts while becoming the first rookie since at least 1932 to record four straight games with 125-plus rush yards. It doesn't take a film-junkie to see Gurley's greatness. When he has the ball in his hands the rookie is the best player on the field. The start to his career has been unmatched. The rest will be thrilling. Eric Dickerson better watch out. --Â *Kevin Patra *
Panthers undefeated at midpoint
To say that the Panthers are coming out of nowhere is ridiculous, but to say that they've arrived sooner than expected is fair. General manager Dave Gettleman has been one of the best in the business for a long time and had a heavy hand in building two world champion Giants teams over the last decade. In Carolina, he's taking the formula into overdrive by pairing three freaky-athletic linebackers with a brutal defensive line that is giving opponents fits. The emergence of Josh Norman at cornerback certainly helps, but this is a true Gettleman team at its core. The Panthers can win in the driving rain, and they can slow down a turf shootout. They are -- most importantly -- built for November and December assuming Cam Newton stays healthy. At some point, they will need to find more of a rhythm in their passing game, and ideally they would have strengthened the backfield if the plan was to stick with a ground and pound, but with Newton evolving at this rate, is anything completely out of the question? -- Conor Orr
CJ2K drinking from fountain of youth
Chris Johnson is a zombie. His career was in the grave after spending the past few seasons throwing his teammates under the bus and failing to make defenders miss in open space. He was signed as an afterthought in mid-August, five months after taking a bullet to the shoulder. Nobody wanted him. Everybody assumed he was washed up, having lost the 4.24 wheels, insane lateral agility and commitment behind his 2,000-yard season a half-decade ago. Now he's second in the NFL in rushing, remaking himself as a more physical, more patient back in an explosive Arizona offense that has already cleared 400 yards as many times this season as it had in the past five years combined. -- Chris Wesseling
Silver and Black are alive
The Raiders are an easy answer here. Why? Look back to what people were saying about this team in August. Comprehensively disregarded, Oakland has seen true growth under center from Derek Carr and boasts a legitimate weapon in Amari Cooper. It's no fluke that the Silver and Black rank eighth in points per game and third-down percentage and ninth in total yards. Khalil Mack also anchors a defense that has improved over last year in scoring, run-stuffing and takeaways. They're far from perfect, but the NFL is a better place when the Raiders are competitive. -- Marc Sessler
