Through three weeks of the 2022 NFL season, the Miami Dolphins are the top team in the AFC. If the playoffs began today, the Jacksonville Jaguars would hold down the second seed. The Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders wouldn’t even crack the conference’s top 10.
This is all thanks to a tremendously small sample size, but it does suggest the league’s ever-changing landscape of contenders continues to shift. While things in the NFC are a bit more predictable, the action in the AFC suggests a wide open, unpredictable race to seven playoff spots.
Of course, this could all be overreaction. Three weeks isn’t enough time to jump to conclusions, especially when the Chicago Bears are on pace for an 11-6 season. But those games also provide a few data points that might help parse out the future.
Let’s use them to address this week’s rising trends.