Way-too-early NFL season awards, plus Kevin Kisner's shirtless celebration

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Good morning! Win a wild-card berth today.

Most pundits start award-tracking around halfway through the NFL season, which makes total sense.

Here at The Pulse, we like to be extremely early to trends.

Surely, handing out awards (and placing some overly confident bets) through just four games is a smart exercise.

But it explains yesterdays NFL action well, so here we are.

Your way-too-early NFL award winners are: MVP: Sam Darnold Thats right.

The man most thought would be a middling rental starter for the Vikings this season looks like the best quarterback in the NFL, leading Minnesota to a 4-0 record with the most touchdown passes in the league (11) while completing 68.9 percent of his passes.

He threw three in Minnesotas 31-29 win at Green Bay yesterday.

Im already starting to wonder how much this 27-year-old will get in free agency.

Rookie of the Year: Jayden Daniels We ran a Pulse Poll before the season, asking which rookie quarterback would play the best, with No.

1 draftee Caleb Williams (understandably) earning most of the votes.

Yet thus far, it has been Daniels already looking like one of the leagues best QBs of any age.

He has completed 82 percent of his passes this year , buoyed by a 26-of-30 effort in yesterdays 42-14 rout of the Cardinals .

Washington is 3-1 for the first time since 2011.

First coach fired: Nick Sirianni or Doug Pederson Feels cosmic, right? Sirianni entered the season on thin ice, and after getting waxed by Tampa Bay yesterday, he looks ripe for scapegoating.

Philadelphia is too talented to look this bad.

Meanwhile, Pederson the guy Sirianni replaced in Philly may be coaching the leagues worst team: Jacksonville, which dropped to 0-4 with a loss to Houston .

Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence has lost his last nine starts.

My bet: Pederson goes first.

Super Bowl winner: Baltimore There has been no better win all season than last nights 35-10 beatdown of the previously unbeaten Bills , which shoved away any memory of Baltimores 0-2 start.

Yes, the Chiefs are 4-0, but they seem allergic to any sort of comfortable win and lost their best wide receiver yesterday.

The Ravens defense looks special, as do Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry .

If they stay healthy, Im taking them over anyone else.

Others receiving award interest: Denver rookie Bo Nix passing for 60 yards in a win , Cincinnati finally getting its first W , Atlantas complete turnaround and, of course, Joe Flacco continuing to win football games .

We probably missed your team.

See our full Week 4 takeaways here .

Liberty and Sun get round-opening wins The first day of the WNBA semifinals certainly lived up to the billing: New York, title favorite and last years runner-up, began the road to exorcizing 2023s demons by beating the defending champion Aces at home, 87-77.

Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart were incredible .

In Minnesota, the visiting Sun escaped with a three-point victory thanks to Alyssa Thomas near triple-double .

These best-of-five series resume Tuesday.

More news MLB s regular season is over.

Players are either packing cars and heading home for the winter or getting ready for playoff baseball.

For most teams, at least.

The Braves and Mets, however, are stuck in a purgatory of MLBs making with a doubleheader today.

Quick catch-up: Whew.

We have a full explainer on the matter here , which includes some possible lineup trickery for Game 2.

An unpredictable weekend at the Presidents Cup ended with the result we expected all along: a blowout win for Team USA.

The Americans went 5-0 on Thursday and 0-5 on Friday, then regrouped to take a big lead Saturday before closing it out yesterday.

Totally how you draw it up.

Maybe the biggest winner of the entire event? Patrick Cantlay , as Brody Miller detailed yesterday .

Cantlay is a supremely talented golfer whos drawn critics for his pace of play and lack of individual success.

But in this format? Cantlay is already a legend .

But my favorite part of the entire event, which I think shows the camaraderie this team sported: a shirtless Kevin Kisner.

Just look: Tarps off!!! @K_Kisner kept his promise.

Pas de chandail!!! Kiz tient sa promesse.

#PresidentsCup | @MaxHoma pic.twitter.com/X5QwswfdHV Presidents Cup (@PresidentsCup) September 29, 2024 Before the tournament, Kisner told Max Homa hed go shirtless on the course if Homa holed out in the Presidents Cup.

Well, Homa buried a hole-out eagle yesterday, and Kisner kept his word.

Golf can be very fun.

Catch up with Justin Rays takeaways from an extremely impressive Team USA victory .

MLB: Mets at Braves, twice 1:10 p.m.

and 4:40 p.m.

ET on ESPN 2 Heres the chaos.

Just put it on.

NFL: Seahawks at Lions 8:15 p.m.

ET on ABC There are two Monday games again tonight, but if youre picking between this and Titans-Dolphins, this game is much, much better.

How good is Seattle? Is Detroit still a real contender? Lets find out.

Stream games like these here and get tickets here .

Until Saturday is still buzzing from that Alabama-Georgia game.

Listen here .

Try todays Connections: Sports Edition beta .

Today was my first total failure.

Contacting HR.

Gunnar Henderson is a star on an Orioles team full of young risers.

But almost every team passed on him in the draft.

How did he become elite so quickly? Brittany Ghiroli detailed the plan to skip six grades in a wonderful feature today .

Save this for your trivia files: Who was the first player in MLB history to win three straight batting titles with three different teams? Dennis Lin has a great story on that man, Padres star Luis Arraez , and his place in history .

This year, Nick Castellanos embraced a dying art for baseball players: starting all 162 games .

We already have NHL waiver wire targets for when teams have to trim rosters.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday : Our story on Kentuckys big upset at Ole Miss .

Most-read on the website yesterday : Stewart Mandels final thoughts on that wild Alabama-Georgia game, which he calls an NIL-era classic .

Sign up for our other newsletters: The Bounce | The Windup | Full Time | The Athletic FC | Prime Tire | Until Saturday | Scoop City (Top photo: Jeff Hanisch / Imagn Images).

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