The NFL season has hit the midway point.

As a way of taking stock, here at SB Nation we are looking around the league, highlighting the best rookies, the biggest disappointments, and the true Super Bowl contenders.

As well as the biggest surprises so far.

Here are six of those.

The Cleveland Browns were not expected to be here.

Ahead of the 2026 NFL regular season, we stacked all 32 teams in tiers, ranked by their chances of winning the Super Bowl. The bottom tier, which we dubbed the “Tankathon Tier,” consisted of the teams we expected to be in the hunt for the No. 1 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.

That included the Browns, who are looking at a pair of first-round picks next spring. Cleveland has their own first-round selection, and they have a first-round pick from the Los Angeles Rams thanks to the Myles Garrett trade.

But right now those picks are almost identical. Cleveland sits at 5-4 at the midway point, just outside of the playoffs — New England would be in as the No. 7 team over the Browns due to a conference record tiebreaker — yet firmly in the mix of the playoff hunt. The Browns’ own pick in a hypothetical 2027 NFL Draft first round at the moment is No. 16, with the Rams’ pick clocking in at No. 18.

Now, some of this might be “smoke and mirrors.” Looking at how all 32 teams stack up through the prism of Offensive and Defensive Expected Points Added, you see the Browns near the bottom of the league:

And while Cleveland beat the Pittsburgh Steelers back in Week 4, the rest of their wins have come against teams with losing records (Tampa Bay, Carolina, Baltimore, and Tennessee). This is not exactly a quality resume.

But it is so much better than we expected it to be.

It is not like things were expected to be much better in New York.

Again, looking back at our preseason ranking of all 32 teams, we had the New York Giants in the second-lowest tier, the “Works in Progress” group. But if the NFC playoffs began right now, the Giants would be at home during Wild Card Weekend as the winners of the NFC East, thanks to their 5-2-1 record.

That is surprising enough, but when you consider that New York lost starting quarterback Jaxson Dart early in the year due to an injury, and running back Cam Skattebo has been iced out — he was inactive for New York’s Week 9 win over the Philadelphia Eagles — the Giants are doing this without two players we all expected to be cornerstones of their offense.

Things will get tougher for New York over the second half of the season. The Giants have games against Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Seattle on the docket, and the Week 17 meeting with the Dallas Cowboys could decide the division.

Still, these Giants are one of the biggest surprises in the league at the midway point.

Right now, you would have to consider the Jacksonville Jaguars to be among the NFL’s elite teams.

Through nine weeks, the Jaguars lead the NFL in point differential, with a margin of +108. They are the only team above 100 points in this metric, and they are 29 points clear of second-place San Francisco. They also leads the NFL with a turnover margin of +9, and looking at the EPA numbers, you can see how they are on par with the 49ers among the NFL’s best teams.

And a good defense got better this week with the trade for Jessie Bates III.

Are there questions? Sure. Jacksonville lost games to the Denver Broncos and the Houston Texans — with Denver looming as a potential playoff opponent and the Texans languishing below .500 — and some of those blowout wins have come against teams like Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Baltimore. They also caught the New England Patriots during a brutal streak for quarterback Drake Maye.

But for a team we viewed as “Playoff Caliber” ahead of the season, Jacksonville looks so, so much better than that.

The Minnesota Vikings have a Super Bowl caliber defense.

Unfortunately, the Minnesota offense, particularly at the quarterback position, is a massive question mark.

But thanks to that defense, the Vikings are one of the biggest surprises this season. Few analysts thought that Minnesota would make a playoff push this season, save for one close to home. Our own James Dator was a believer in Minnesota dating back to the offseason, writing in June that the Vikings were “poised to make waves,” and that “Brian Flores is a schematic genius who possesses the rare ability to take mediocre talent and turn them into monsters.”

Sounds about right.

Now they just need to sort out the offense.

Perhaps Kirk Cousins is the answer.

We can now move away from teams, and take a look at two rookies that have stood out this year.

First up is Emmett Johnson of the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs added the running back out of Nebraska in the fifth round of the 2026 NFL Draft. But Johnson has carved out a fascinating role in the Kansas City offense, giving the Chiefs an explosive piece out of the backfield and serving as a true complement to Kenneth Walker III.

Through the first half of the season, Johnson has 26 carries for 111 yards and a touchdown (averaging 4.3 yards per carry on the ground) but where he has truly shined is in the passing game. He has caught 14 passes for a whopping 237 yards and a touchdown, an average of 16.9 yards per reception, bolstered by his 73-yard touchdown against the Denver Broncos.

As the Chiefs continue to try and find explosive plays in the passing game, he could carve out an even bigger role going forward.

Zakee Wheatley, like Emmett Johnson, was also a fifth-round pick last spring. The Carolina Panthers picked him at No. 151, drafting him out of Penn State.

Wheatley has been a force at the back of Carolina’s secondary, racing up 27 total tackles and a forced fumble along with a textbook interception of Jordan Love in Week 8:

Wheatley did see his snaps tick down last week against the Denver Broncos, in the first game under interim defensive coordinator Todd Walsh. So that is a trend worth monitoring, but even with that reduction in playing time, he has been one of the big surprises in the NFL this season.