NFL Winners and Losers: Is Todd Gurley already the NFL’s best running back?

Tell the St. Louis Rams you shouldn’t draft a running back in the top 10 anymore.

The secret seems to be this: just make sure that back is really special. The Rams bucked the trend, drafted a running back (who was injured, on top of it all) and there aren’t any regrets. Todd Gurley has transformed the Rams.

Gurley hasn’t been just good, he’s been the best rookie running back ever, at least through his first four starts. He has 566 yards in his first four starts, the most of any rookie back in the Super Bowl era. Billy Sims, with 539, held that record.

Gurley has had a huge run in each of his starts. He had a 48-yarder against Cleveland, a 52-yarder against Arizona, a 55-yarder against Green Bay and on Sunday he had a 71-yarder against San Francisco. This is the NFL. It’s almost impossible to regularly break big runs. Consider that coming into Sunday’s games, not counting Gurley, two running backs had multiple 40-yard runs this year. Adrian Peterson had three. Chris Johnson had two. Nobody else had more than one. And remember, Gurley missed the beginning of this season because he’s coming off an ACL injury.

The 71-yard touchdown run showed how Gurley has changed the Rams. St. Louis was flat, trailing 3-2 in the second quarter, and we’ve seen the Rams blow winnable games all through the Jeff Fisher era. For a while it seemed again like they were playing down to the competition. Then all of a sudden Gurley exploded through the hole and was running in the open field, blowing past the secondary on his way to a 71-yard touchdown. The Rams never looked back. They won 27-6 and are now 4-3. They’re 3-1 in Gurley’s four starts.

The question has started to bubble up to the surface and it will continue to get steam after Gurley put in a 133-yard game on Sunday: Is the Rams rookie already the best running back in football?

Who else would you pick? Devonta Freeman has been excellent for the Atlanta Falcons, but you wouldn’t take him over Gurley. Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson is still playing at a high level, with three 100-yard games (and a 98-yard game) and a 4.5-yard average. Le’Veon Bell would have been a great pick, but now he has a knee injury.

It sounds crazy after just four starts, but Gurley should already be considered the NFL’s best running back.

If you were starting a team from scratch to play the rest of the season, Gurley should be your top pick at running back. He runs with power and has also been the best big-play back in the NFL as well. Every breathless thing that was said about him coming out of the University of Georgia has come true. The Rams have had a really good defense for a while, just no offense because the passing game has been so bad. The Rams still don’t really have a passing game but it doesn’t matter. They can just give the ball to Gurley and nobody has been able to stop that yet.

If he keeps up this pace (which seems impossible, by the way, because nobody in history has kept up a pace like this), and the Rams keep winning, NFL rookie of the year will be an afterthought. We might have to start wondering if he can be an MVP candidate.

Here are the rest of the winners and losers from Week 8 of the NFL season.

WINNERS

Oakland Raiders: If the NFL season ended today, do you know who would be the AFC’s last playoff team? The New York Jets.

That’s because the Raiders would be above them as the top wild-card team in the AFC. Seriously.

How did this happen? The Raiders were supposed to be building this year and maybe make a run next year. But now, after a dominant 34-20 victory over the New York Jets, why not this year?

Quarterback Derek Carr picked apart a really good Jets defense. Carr had 333 yards and four touchdowns. He’s further along than anyone expected midway through his second season and at this point you’d have to call him a true future franchise quarterback (sorry, Houston Texans fans). And Carr has a lot of weapons around him. The Raiders’ defense might not be great, but every other team that will be battling for a wild-card spot in the AFC has some flaws. Basically, there’s no reason the Raiders can’t keep this going and make the playoffs.

The Raiders haven’t been to the playoffs since the end of the 2002 season. If this season ended right now, they would be in. Crazy times.

Minnesota Vikings: We’re so desperate for good teams outside of the undefeated few in the NFL, so why are the Vikings being wholly ignored?

They have now won five of their past six, with the only loss coming by a field goal at the Denver Broncos. They aren’t blowing out teams, so maybe there’s a luck correction coming, but you can also argue that the Vikings have shown something by winning most of their close games.

The Vikings were against the ropes on Sunday. Jay Cutler scored a touchdown with less than five minutes left to give the Bears a 20-13 lead. Then the Vikings scored the last 10 points of regulation.

Teddy Bridgewater hit Stefon Diggs for a 40-yard touchdown (what a grand slam pick Diggs has been; how did he fall to the fifth round?) and then the defense forced a quick three-and-out. Bridgewater hit a couple passes for 39 yards, Peterson rushed for 9, Blair Walsh kicked the game-winning field goal at the gun and that was a wrap.

The Vikings continue to be the best team in the NFL nobody is talking about. Public approval doesn’t matter when playoff spots are handed out, so the Vikings are fine.

Carolina Panthers: The Panthers didn’t play on Sunday, but they were big winners.

The NFC South race looked like it would be a big one between the Atlanta Falcons and the Panthers. Now it looks like a one-team jog.

The Falcons haven’t looked good for three weeks. They lost at New Orleans (which doesn’t look as bad now as it did when it happened), struggled in an ugly win at a bad Tennessee Titans team, and then lost at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Even after the Buccaneers blew a 17-point lead to allow Atlanta to force overtime, Jameis Winston drove the Bucs right down the field to win the game in overtime.

The Falcons are either in a severe slump or they’ve been exposed in the past few weeks. Either way, before the Panthers even kick off on Monday night, they now look like the overwhelming favorite to win the NFC South again, thanks to the Falcons.

LOSERS

Calvin Johnson: There’s a scene you remember from “Good Will Hunting.” Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon that the best part of his day is the 10 seconds before he picks up Damon. Because he thinks that maybe that will be the day Damon is gone, “no goodbye, no see you later, no nothing.” That his friend has finally moved on to a better life. I feel this way about Johnson and the Detroit Lions.

I hope that some day, Johnson will play for a franchise that isn’t a laughingstock. That he’ll play with a quarterback better than Matthew Stafford, who is regressing so badly he looks like a rookie who can’t figure out how to beat a blitz. That Megatron’s all-time talent isn’t just meant to waste along with a 1-7 team that is probably going to fire its head coach soon and start all over again.

Johnson was wasting away again Sunday, in a 45-10 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. It is tough to see a great player, who has two playoff appearances and no wins, seeing another season in his career pass with no reward. The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday. There’s absolutely no chance Johnson is getting traded, for many reasons. But I can still hope that there’s something more for him in the NFL than this.

The New York Jets’ quarterback situation: Now the Jets have two injured, mediocre quarterbacks.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was knocked out early in Sunday’s game with what ESPN.com’s Rich Cimini reported was torn left thumb ligaments. But in the final minute, Fitzpatrick had to briefly return to action because Geno Smith was so beat up. Smith suffered shoulder and abdomen injuries.

The Jets didn’t do themselves any favors on Sunday. Losing to the Raiders might end up mattering by the end of the season when wild-card spots are handed out (no, it’s not any less crazy to seriously talk about Raiders and playoff spots than it was a few hundred words ago). And now the offense comes limping out of Oakland.

The Jets’ success always seemed tenuous because the offense is always going to limit the team’s ceiling. Fitzpatrick has been solid, and Smith threw for 265 yards and two touchdowns in relief (although it was mostly meaningless after the Raiders went up big). But they’re still not quarterbacks you’d feel too comfortable with. And now they’re hurting.

Folks who like defensive football: The Saints-Giants game was fun. No question. I just wouldn’t say it was “good,” really.

I don’t want to see the NFL turn into the Big 12. And that’s all Saints 52, Giants 49 was. The offenses were good, surely, and Drew Brees and Eli Manning found every hole to exploit. But that’s the thing: There were so many holes to exploit.

This was a defensive debacle. Neither team is good on defense and they were really bad on Sunday. It was three hours of blown coverages and bad tackling. So was 101 points entertaining? Sure. Do I want to see this become normal in the NFL? Not really. Keep that on Saturdays.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab