The 1972 Dolphins may be popping the champagne sooner than usual.
Through three weeks, and one game of the fourth, only one franchise remains unbeaten. Beyond the 3-0 Eagles, every team has at least one loss.
And the Eagles will have their hands full on Sunday, when former Eagles coach Doug Pederson returns to town with a very good Jaguars team in tow.
As Peter King mentioned on Friday’s PFT Live, and as he’ll write in Monday’s Football Morning in America, there were seven unbeaten teams after the first three weeks of the 2020 season, and there were five unbeaten teams after the first three weeks of the 2021 season.
Of the league’s 32 teams, 30 of them currently have one or two losses.
With 14 games to play (13 for Miami and Cincinnati), the league is more wide open than ever. Every division title, every wild-card spot. It all remains up for grabs.
And that likely will continue. Although wins from September and October become money in the bank come December and January, every year there’s a team hovering around .500 after Thanksgiving that finds the gas pedal and gets hot -- into the postseason and beyond.
The talent gap among the best and worst teams is more narrow than ever. And, as we’ve already seen in multiple games, a series of key plays that go the wrong way for the “better” team can make the old cliche of “any given Sunday” come to fruition, on any given Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday, or pretty much whenever games are played.
