Top 10 surprise stories of the NFL season so far

So where does he feature on the list?The NFL is a wonderfully unpredictable league. Every year teams and individual players rise from obscurity and fall from grace in spectacular fashion. This year is no different, with a flurry of players and franchises bringing new expectations, both good and bad, after their play through the first seven-week of the season.Here, I look at the biggest surprises so far, from rejuvenated veterans to flopping Super Bowl contenders.

#10 Peyton Manning, QB, Denver Broncos

The fact that Manning isn’t playing up to par is not as much of a surprise given his obvious lack of arm strength down the stretch in 2014. But the sheer drop in Manning’s continued poor play in 2015 has gone beyond that, and it has been one of the bigger talking points in 2015.

While we’ve known for a while that Manning’s arm strength isn’t what it once was, what we’re seeing this season is something else entirely. I wrote in an article after week 2 that “The problem is that while Peyton clearly still has a Peyton Manning mind, he doesn’t have a Peyton Manning arm.” I’d like to retract that statement, because the Peyton Manning mind isn’t there anymore either. The future Hall-of-Famer is making mental errors and throwing inaccurately at key moments, forcing the Denver defence to pick up the slack each and every week.

Manning leads the NFL with 10 interceptions and has only 7 touchdowns. His 6.43 yards per attempt and 72.5 quarterback rating are the second worst marks in the league behind Ryan Mallett, who just got cut by the Texans. As great as he once was, for everyone’s sake I hope this is Peyton Manning’s final season in the NFL. Remember him for what he was, please, and not for what he’s become.

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