The most surprising part of the NFL season so far is... Dante Fowler

The Mothership tasked us with writing about the most surprising part of the 2017 season so far. I thought about just writing “1-0” and turning it in, but I like my job. Then my thoughts turned to Blake Bortles not throwing a pick-six in an NFL game and thought that was a bit snarky, especially considering he’s won two of his three games with Doug Marrone as head coach.

Then it hit me — Dante Fowler.

We gave Fowler a ton of shit around Big Cat Country and for good reason. Since being drafted as a premier pass rusher in 2015, the defensive end had been arrested for just one less misdemeanor than sack he’d registered in his NFL career. The guy knocked a dude’s glasses off and threw his groceries in a lake. Man what?

But Fowler looked every bit the part of a No. 3 overall draft pick with his performance in the season opener. He had three tackles, two sacks, one fumble recovery, and a touchdown. It was the best box score a defensive end has had in a long, long time.

So here’s to you, Dante. I hope you show me up every week from here to kingdom come.