It would have been almost unfathomable after their Week 1 loss to San Francisco, but the Dallas Cowboys are currently the best team in the NFC, raising their record to 5-1 with a surprising road win over the defending Super Bowl champs in Seattle.

Plenty of early season anomalies proved to be just that – Tom Brady is no longer a good quarterback, the Packers aren’t one of the league’s best teams anymore, etc. – but the suddenly clutch Cowboys don’t seem to fit that definition at this point. Thanks to an improved offensive line, running attack and suddenly aggressive defense, it’s starting to look like Dallas might break that four-year playoff drought after all.

With that in mind, here’s one observation about Cowboys rookie guard Zack Martin and four other things we noticed while spending seven hours watching the afternoon action in front of the NFL Red Zone Channel.

1) Dallas Cowboys guard Zack Martin might be the offensive rookie of the year so far

Interior offensive line performance might be one of the hardest things for the casual football fan to quantify. It’s certainly easy to judge stats of skill players like running backs and wide receivers. It’s even pretty obvious from the horizontal positioning of the team’s quarterback if one of the tackles failed to block his assignment.

While websites like Pro Football Focus score the individual performance of every player on the field after each game, most of the indicators of success on the offensive line tend to be more collective in the general performance of the unit. The Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line returned four starters to that group in 2014, the only addition being first-round pick Zack Martin at right guard.

You can point to the improvement of franchise left tackle Tyron Smith and the development of second-year center Travis Frederick as factors that have improved the line of the 5-1 Cowboys, but it certainly seems that the addition of Martin to the front five was the final piece that made this group one of the best in the NFL.

Heading into Dallas’ Week 6 upset of the defending Super Bowl champion, PFF had Martin as the highest rated rookie offensive lineman in the NFL. But even more impressive are these two differences between this season and last year after Week 6.

2014

Rushing yards per game: 160.3

Quarterback sacks allowed: 10

2013

Rushing yards per game: 84.8

Quarterback sacks allowed: 14

That’s a pretty eye-popping improvement, even if it’s hard to quantify precisely how much of a difference can be individually attributed to Martin. But given how the group has gelled so far and the lack of an offensive standout at one of the skill positions so far, can you argue that any offensive rookie has been more valuable to his team in the first six weeks?

Blake Bortles and Derek Carr have performed adequately so far, but they’re both still leading winless teams. There isn’t one rookie running back among the top 20 rushing leaders right now.

The only candidate among skill players who might have an argument is Carolina Panthers wideout Kelvin Benjamin, who has 31 catches for 416 yards and four touchdowns in six games. Those numbers put him on pace for just over 1100 yards and 10 touchdowns, which would certainly be a great debut effort.

But if the Cowboys continue at this clip – DeMarco Murray will set an NFL record as the only player in league history to do so in his first seven games of the season if he runs for over 100 yards next week versus the Giants – it’ll get harder to keep Martin out of the offensive ROY discussion.

2) The Cleveland Browns could easily be 6-2 at the halfway point of the season

With a 31-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Browns beat their longtime rival by the largest margin since 1989 and for only the sixth time in 31 tries since the team’s return to the NFL in 1999.

While those historic results speak to the general fortunes of the two franchises over the past 15 years, they seem to be heading in very different directions at this point of the season. After a terrible first half in their Week 1 loss to the Steelers, the Browns scored 24 unanswered second half points only to lose the game 30-27 on a last second field goal. Their other loss, a 23-21 Week 3 game versus Baltimore also was decided on the last play.

Just as the Steelers have looked much worse than their 3-3 record over the past two weeks, the Browns are playing with the confidence of a team that knows they could be 4-1 or even 5-0 had one or two plays gone the opposite way.

The loss of Pro Bowl center Alex Mack for the season to a broken leg will certainly have an effect on the offensive line, but the Browns could very much be playing for the lead in the AFC North when they face the Bengals on Thursday Night Football in Week 10.

The next three opponents for the Browns include two winless teams in Oakland and Jacksonville, followed by the 1-5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 9. If Cleveland can come out of this trifecta of terribleness with a string of victories, they’ll be 6-2 by the time they face the currenly 3-1-1 Bengals, who travel to Indianapolis next week before hosting Baltimore in Week 8.

The Browns will certainly face a tougher final eight games than their first, with both Cincinnati games, plus matchups with Houston, Atlanta, Indianapolis and Baltimore among them. But if Brian Hoyer continues to play well and Josh Gordon can play on the same level as he did in 2013 once he returns in Week 12, the Browns might still be in the playoff discussion at the end of December.

3) In their first six games, the Bucs have been outscored 72-17 in the first quarter

Now 1-5 on the season, the Bucs have been on the receiving end of two of the worst blowouts of 2014 so far. They lost 56-14 in a brutal Thursday night game in Week 3 and then allowed Joe Flacco to tie his single-game touchdown record in just one quarter in Sunday’s 48-17 loss to the Ravens.

In both games, their opponents got off to huge first quarter starts, with the Falcons going up 21-0 and the Ravens pulling out to a 28-0 lead. In addition to those two games, the Bucs haven’t been able to start any of their first six games with a lead at the end of the first quarter. Their most impressive start proved to be a 10-10 mark in their only win of the year against Pittsburgh.

The Bucs are now giving up an average of 12 first quarter points per game. To put that in perspective, the 2013 Washington Redskins (3-13) finished the season averaging a league-worst 7.9 points per game in that category. In 2012, the Tennessee Titans (6-10) were more than three points worse than anyone else in the NFL in that average, with 9.7 points allowed per first quarter.

4) Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley may not want to check Twitter for a while

Pittsburgh Steelers fans haven’t exactly had warm and fuzzy feelings about offensive coordinator Todd Haley since he joined the team in 2012, but the team’s past three games have certainly make the “Fire Haley” crowd much more vocal.

Here’s a sampling of some of the cleaner opinions of Haley’s job performance – Steelers fan Snoop Dogg cursed him out on Instagram after the team’s Week 4 loss to the Bucs – following Pittsburgh’s 31-10 loss to Cleveland, one in which the offense didn’t score a touchdown until the game was out of reach with three minutes to play.

The only news I want to hear tomorrow is that Todd Haley is no longer Offensive Coordinator of the @Steelers. — David (@DavidRaymondW) October 13, 2014

Is anyone noticing that todd haley is trending higher than ebola. People hate haley more then a dangerous pandemic. Way to go steelers. — Tony Solomon (@solomon6928) October 12, 2014

We fired Bruce Arians to hire Todd Haley 😂😂😂😂 — Pharaoh Of The Fall (@LilRxck) October 12, 2014

After being ripped for not running the ball enough, Haley almost defiantly called a run-heavy game plan on Sunday, including a ten play first quarter drive that included nine rushing plays (including three repetitive ones from inside seven yards).

How bad did the criticism of Haley get during the game? Even former Cleveland Browns CEO Joe Banner, who was let go in the offseason by the same franchise that was beating the Steelers, felt the need to weigh in.

Todd Haley gets 50 yards of offense on last two plays of half to pad his yardage stats. Hopes no one will notice how awful he is — Joe Banner (@JoeBanner13) October 12, 2014

5) Tiger Woods and the Oakland Raiders continue to have the same number of wins in 2014

As For The Win’s Nick Schwartz posted, Tiger Woods dropped by the Black Hole before the Oakland Raiders hosted the San Diego Chargers Sunday afternoon. Despite Oakland’s best effort, they were not able to win in the presence of the legendary golfer, losing 31-28 on a late 10-point rally by the Chargers.

It was a tough day for home teams with famous 1990s Cardinal alums in attendance. Former Wonder Years star Fred Savage posted an Instagram photo of himself (since deleted) of himself drinking coffee in the seats of the Seahawks-Cowboys game in Seattle.

Fans in Philadelphia had better hope that Chelsea Clinton didn’t decide to make the 90 minute drive down from New York for the Sunday night clash between the Eagles and Giants.