The Best Team In The NFL That No One's Talking About

No, it's not the Bills. They get talked about plenty, although no one seems to care that their defense’s only good showings all season have come against the Chargers and a third stringer for Baltimore on Sunday.

It's not the Chiefs, although a win this week would’ve been tough to argue against.

It's not the Niners, whose injury bug is starting to catch up to them.

It could be the Bears - but for now I'm going to call them second.

It's a team I've long hated on, and a quarterback in particular I long have. A team that no one talks about because of their market, a market so small and insignificant they only play half of their home games there. A team whose franchise's perception will likely always undermine any expectation, and understandably so.

But it's time to put my personal feelings/beliefs aside, and say what I see.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are the best team in the NFL.

Let's start with the objective.

The Jags are a top 10 offense, very balanced passing vs. rushing attack, and rank 5th in points per game at 28.0.

Defensively, they're a bit more one-dimensional, but that one dimension is elite; the league's best rushing defense allowing just 77 yards per game on the ground - the only team allowing less than 80 YPG) - elite.

They trail only Minnesota in points allowed per game at 15.9 and lead the league in turnover differential at +7.

For you super nerdy folks, I stumbled upon this EPA graph after I decided to write this blog, which perfectly proves how well rounded this team is. More so than anyone else.

Still not convinced?

The Jags have the best Strength of Victory of any one or two-loss team in the league. Three of their five wins have been by more than 24 points (most 20+ point wins in the NFL), and in their two losses have been victims to Denver's 4th quarter sorcery and the Texans in the most desperate spot any team has been in all season.

Trevor Lawrence is a changed man with Liam Coen as his head coach. After a slow start to last season, Trevor has thrown/run for 44 TDs and 11 Ints in his last 17 games, including a 17/4 split this year. Those are MVP-caliber numbers.

The RB duo of Bhayshul Tuten and Chris Rod have averaged 4.5 yards per carry this season, Parker Washington and Jacobi Meyers have formed a dynamic one-two punch at WR, and Brenton Strange has entered the chat as a top-10 pass catching TE.

They have no weakness.

So let's get subjective, and look at the other best teams around the league.

If the Jags played the Bills tomorrow, who are you taking? I think they'd be able to limit James Cook and contain Josh Allen in the run game (just as the Patriots did in their one loss this season) while doing whatever they wanted against that defense. That's a win.

They lost to the Broncos, but I simply refuse to believe the Broncos are a team that can sustain the bullshit they pull off every week. They already did it to the Jags this year, and they're starting to have that "inevitable" feeling, but I can't accept they're a better team while they sit at 6-2 with a +7 point differential.

Same with the Chiefs, who in reality have had one dominating outing this season (week 1 against Denver).

The Bengals already did and the Steelers would definitely lose if they played, and they beat the Patriots by 100 a few weeks back.

So there's the AFC.

The Bears are the biggest threat, and I can't wait to see these two teams go at each other next month. But there's no one else in the NFC that's playing that great.

Lions? 49ers? Vikings? Rams? I like the Jags against them all (at this point in time).

You won't hear the national media mention them much, and you don't get the feeling when you look at the logo that there's reason to fear them, but everything you see on the field says otherwise.

Their next stretch of games is against Joe Fagnano and the Ravens, the Titans twice and the Giants. I think this team goes into Chicago on the first Sunday in December at 9-2, and all eyes of the football world will be on Jacksonville.

Say it with me. Duuuuuuvvvvvaaaaaaaaallllllllllll.