I didn't see Maye playing as well as he has. I thought he showed tremendous tools and potential last year, but still progress to be made a winning plays type of QB. I thought there'd be more growing pains than there have been so far this year. Basically the uneven sort of performances we've gotten the last 2 weeks is what I expected all year. I would still classify that as positive on him, but I didn't think he'd be ready to elevate a team's record like he has.
At his age and coming off injury I didn't think Diggs would be as good as he's been. I still think he's a weak #1 WR, but I thought he'd be a sorry attempt at a #1 WR so that's actually way better than I forecasted. None of that is to say I thought he'd be "bad" as a WR in general, I just didn't think he'd be anything resembling a #1 WR and he's been a close enough approximation to it. I'll also say that even though I thought Boutte could play, he's far exceeding my expectations. I thought he was a #4 WR type who could masquerade as a #3 but he's looking like a solid #2 or a GREAT #3 type.
I wasn't one of those "OMG Campbell has to move to LG because his arms are short" guys, but I did think he had a limited ceiling and I expected that ceiling as a rookie to need to be dialed back. So I was expecting below average LT play this year. He's playing at a level as high as I ever saw him reaching and doing it right away, so that's a massive upgrade from my expectations.
I wouldn't say it's been as impactful as the above players, but Tonga is the other guy who's far and away exceeded my expectations.
For the rest of the roster, I'd say Milton Williams, Morgan Moses, Mack Hollins, Spillane, Chaisson are all outplaying my expectations but not drastically so. Everything else I'd say has been roughly at the level I expected.
I really thought this team was mostly average all over, and TBH I still do think that. Hence, I'm still not ready to buy into us having playoff success commensurate with our 8-2 record yet. But the key improvements vs. what I thought we'd get in those 3 critical positions (QB, LT, WR) have us a team that I think is legitimately worthy of a top record and not just lucky to play enough punching bags to inflate the record. I was always hesitant to stamp a record prediction on the team because I thought our schedule was so underwhelming that the record wasn't going to be a full indicator of actual improvement/progress on the roster. With elite QB play, solid WR play and above average LT play, this team is way more legit than just lucky to play bad teams. I still think the roster overall has more average/ok than it does good or great and the top end talent is a bit weak, so I see those things being our undoing against teams better equipped for playoff runs, but this is still way better than I thought in so many areas.
