Every team has those players whose performances outstrip their name recognition for whatever reason. Maybe the team itself is so unspectacular, that getting attention from the nation is a fool’s errand. Maybe it’s someone who was buried on the depth chart until the coaches could really see the potential. It could be that the player in question has been below average before, and it takes a second for people to catch up with the fact that the light really did come on. Or, perhaps someone was disregarded in the draft, and had to bully his way up the ladder against all odds.
Regardless, at SB Nation, we like to recognize these players in our weekly “Secret Superstars” series. We also like to assemble the best of the relative unknowns for All-Star teams at midseason, and when the season is over. So, here’s our midseason All-Secret Superstars offense, filled with guys whose games are far better than the recognition they actually receive.
Quarterback: Joe Flacco, Cincinnati Bengals
Well, who the hell expected THIS?
In his four games as the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback this season, the 41-year-old Joe Flacco looked past done. He completed 93 of 160 passes (59.1%) for 815 yards (5.1 yards per attempt), two touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 60.3. Outside of Cincinnati’s Jake Browning, who had initially replaced the injured Joe Burrow, there may not have been a worse starting quarterback in the entire NFL.
The Browns did what seemed to be the right thing. They benched Flacco in favor of rookie Dillon Gabriel, and traded Flacco and a 2026 sixth-round pick in-state for a 2026 fifth-round pick to the Bengals on October 7. Flacco was quickly named the Bengals’ starter, because what other choice did the Bengals have?
Nobody could have expected how well Flacco would have done. In three starts, Flacco has completed 81 of 126 passes (64.3%) for 784 yards (6.2 yards per attempt), seven touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 100.1. Yes, it helps when you have Ja’Marr Chase, and Chase’s target share with Flacco has been pretty huge, but this is more about a veteran coming in, taking an offense by the scruff of the neck, and executing it about as well as you could imagine with no prep time whatsoever.
If the Bengals had half a defense, Flacco would be an even bigger story. Alas, they’ve lost two of his three starts, and barely eked out a 33-31 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and their own tomato-can defense. But Flacco is dealing right now!
Running Back: Rico Dowdle, Carolina Panthers
Rico Dowdle did try to warn his former NFL team.
After a 2024 season in which Dowdle gained 1,079 rushing yards and scored two rushing touchdowns on 235 carries, adding 39 catches on 49 targets for 249 yards and three more touchdowns, he was deemed irrelevant by the team that signed him as an undrafted free agent out of South Carolina in 2020. Dowdle didn’t do much for the Cowboys in his first three NFL seasons; it took an empty running back room for him to get his shot, and he did the best he could with it.
Still, he needed a new home, and the Carolina Panthers provided that with a one-year, $2.75 million contract, and the opportunity to compete with Chuba Hubbard in the backfield. Hubbard was the main man until a calf injury slowed him down in early October, and that became Dowdle’s time to shine. In Week 5 against the Miami Dolphins, Dowdle gained 206 yards and scored a rushing touchdown on 23 carries. He forced eight missed tackles, had four runs of 15 or more yards, and had just one negative run. Add in his three catches on three targets for 28 yards, and it was a bravura performance in Carolina’s 27-24 win.
Then came the revenge game against the Cowboys, who rolled into Week 6 with Javonte Williams as their feature back. Dowdle made it clear in the lead-up to the game that Jerry Jones made a mistake in deeming him redundant. Dowdle said that the Cowboys had better “buckle up” for this one, and not everybody on the other side seemed to take him seriously.
Dowdle, the reigning NFC Offensive Player of the Week (and who also made Secret Superstars last December), may have doubled up on that honor after the Panthers’ 30-27 win, in which he totaled 183 yards on 30 carries. Dowdle had six more runs of 15 or more yards, and he didn’t have a single negative run in the entire game. He also had four catches on five targets for 56 yards and a touchdown, and become the sixth running back in the Super Bowl era with at least 225 scrimmage yards and a touchdown in consecutive games. The other guys are pretty impressive overall:
Dalvin Cook (2020 with Minnesota);
Le’Veon Bell (2014 with Pittsburgh);
Deuce McAllister (2003 with New Orleans);
Marshall Faulk (2002 with the St. Louis Rams); and
Walter Payton (1977 with Chicago).
Pretty, pretty good. Dowdle also gained 122 rushing yards after contact, the most by any Panthers running back in the Next Gen Stats era, which goes back to 2016, and includes that Christian McCaffrey guy. Even since, when the Panthers got bollixed by the Bills in Week 8, Dowdle was still performing well, even as head coach Dave Canales tried to make Hubbard more of a thing than he actually was.
Receiver: Kayshon Boutte, New England Patriots
Drake Maye’s unexpected rise into the Quarterback Pantheon in 2025 has been bolstered by a surprising source in third-year receiver Kayshon Boutte. The 2023 sixth-round pick out of LSU has 23 catches on 30 targets this season for 431 yards and five touchdowns, and the ways in which Maye and Boutte have been able to hook up on deep passes is pretty incendiary.
Maye has been by far the NFL’s best passer on throws of 20 or more air yards, and it isn’t remotely close — on those throws this season, he’s completed 18 of 23 passes for 549 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions, and the highest possible passer rating of 158.3. Meanwhile, only Jaxon Smith-Njigba of the Seattle Seahawks (who have their own deep assassin in Sam Darnold) has more deep catches (10) than Boutte’s nine on 10 targets for 236 yards, a league-high five touchdowns, and a quarterback rating of (you guessed it) 158.3.
Boutte was a decent deep threat even in Maye’s rookie season of 2024, when he caught six deep passes on 17 targets for 204 yards and three touchdowns. Now, as Maye has become the quarterback the Patriots hoped he could be, Boutte has benefited as much or more than anybody else.
Receiver: Alec Pierce, Indianapolis Colts
We actually have two underrated deep targets in our offense (four verts, everybody!), and Pierce has been That Guy for a while now. The 2022 second-round pick out of Cincinnati has always been an outstanding vertical target; it’s been more about the relative inability of the Colts’ quarterbacks to actually get him the ball downfield. Last season, with Anthony Richardson and the aforementioned Mr. Flacco as his quarterbacks, Pierce caught 12 deep passes on 30 targets for 517 yards and three touchdowns.
That was impressive, but what Pierce has done now that Daniel Jones has shocked the entire NFL with what he’s been able to accomplish in Shane Steichen’s offense has been quite something. Pierce has just four deep receptions this season, but he’s been able to show off his total route acumen now that he has a quarterback who is conversant with the timing of those routes, and can execute the right throws with ease. All of Indianapolis’ receivers have benefited from the upgrade at quarterback, and Pierce is right up there.
Tight End: Oronde Gadsden II, Los Angeles Chargers
Wide receiver Oronde Gadsden wasn’t exactly a household name when he came into the NFL in 1995. An undrafted free agent out of Winston-Salem State (one of 15 NFL players to come from that school, with the most notable alum being former Chargers, Steelers, and Titans receiver Yancey Thigpen), Gadsden managed to catch 227 passes on 407 career targets from 1998 through 2003 for 3,252 yards and 22 touchdowns. He also caught Dan Marino’s final touchdown pass, albeit in a 62-7 Divisional Round demolition at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But the elder Gadsden had to go through three years of purgatory before he got his chance — before that, there were unsuccessful stints with the Dallas Cowboys, the Steelers, and the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football before a 93-catch season with the Arena League’s Portland Forest Dragons (no, really) in 1998 got the Dolphins’ attention.
Gadsden’s son, Oronde II, went similarly under the radar, though he went to a bigger school (Syracuse), and he didn’t have to run through alternate leagues, playing for teams with Led Zeppelin lyric names. Gadsden II was the ninth tight end selected in the 2025 draft, and he had to wait until the 167th pick in the fifth round before the Los Angeles Chargers handed in the card with his name on it.
Gadsden had been the most productive tight end in Syracuse history, and his background as a former wide receiver set the 6’5, 236-pounder up pretty well in Jim Harbaugh’s and Greg Roman’s passing game. The debits that took him to the fifth round were more about in-line blocking, his height and weight, and whether he’d be able to deal with next-level defenders in traffic.
Little did anybody know…
Gadsden didn’t have any offensive snaps in the Chargers’ first two regular-season games, but when he got opportunities, he certainly made the most of them. Over the Chargers’ last three games, concluding with the team’s 37-10 blowout of the Minnesota Vikings last Thursday night, Gadsden has 19 catches for 309 yards and two touchdowns. That yardage total makes Gadsden the third tight end since at least 1970 to gain more than 300 in a three-game stretch, along with Kyle Pitts of the Atlanta Falcons, and Brock Bowers of the Las Vegas Raiders.
As Pitts was the fourth overall pick in the 2021 draft, and Bowers was the 13th overall pick in the 2023 draft, to have a 167th overall pick playing at this altitude is quite something.
Left Tackle: Garett Bolles, Denver Broncos
We don’t often put first-round picks in any Secret Superstars roster — kinda defeats the purpose, as they’re not really a secret in that case — but as offensive linemen are rarely given the credit they deserve, Garett Bolles of the Broncos does qualify. Yes, he was the 20th overall pick in the 2017 draft out of Utah, and yes, he’s riding high on a four-year, $82 million extension with $23,735 million guaranteed on December 11, 2024 (the second mega-extension of his NFL career), but do people outside of the Mike High City realize how good this guy has been?
This season, there should be no doubt. On 340 pass-blocking snaps this season, and for a young, mobile quarterback in Bo Nix, Bolles has allowed no sacks, two quarterback hits, and three quarterback hurries. His run-blocking has also been great, but with Bolles, it’s really about his ability to get in motion on pulls, and on plays in which he’s asked to hit the second level. The 6’5, 300-pound Bolles is playing left tackle as well as anybody in the NFL right now.
Left Guard: Damien Lewis, Carolina Panthers
Seattle Seahawks rookie Grey Zabel nearly made it here, but I was a bit more impressed with the tape of Panthers left guard Damien Lewis, who played for Seattle from 2020-2023 as the team’s third-round pick in 2020. Since signing a four-year, $53 million contract with $26,215 million guaranteed with the Panthers prior to the 2024 season, Lewis has mixed his natural power style and better pass-blocking acumen.
The same guy who allowed six sacks, two quarterback hits, and 16 quarterback pressures in the 2024 season has tamped that down to one sack, two quarterback hits, and four quarterback hurries through Week 8 in 2025. Lewis is at his best when firing out and demolishing people, but now, with the pass-blocking nuances on board, he’s living up to that lofty contract.
Center: Tanor Bortolini, Indianapolis Colts
Bortolini first caught my eye when he went off at the 2024 scouting combine, which of course took me back to his tape at Wisconsin. Over his four-year career with the Badgers, in which he allowed three sacks, six quarterback hits, and 14 quarterback hurries on 962 pass-blocking reps and held up well in the run game, Bortolini proved to be more than just another combine star without the prior performance to back it up.
The Colts selected Bortolini in the fourth round of the 2024 draft, and that’s turned out quite well for what has become the NFL’s best offense. The 6’4, 310-pound Bortolini has been just as clean a pass-blocker in the NFL as he was in the NCAA — through 1.5 seasons with the Colts, he has yet to allow a sack, and he’s given up four quarterback hits and 13 quarterback hurries in 494 pass-blocking reps. Bortolini has also been a major asset in the run game that has Jonathan Taylor looking for space on his mantlepiece for a potential NFL MVP or Offensive Player of the Year award, and the ways in which he’s able to float around and just lay defenders out in run-blocking or pass pro is quite impressive.
Right Guard: Quinn Meinerz, Denver Broncos
Meinerz has been famous for his workouts and his “body beautiful” memes since he was trying to get into the NFL out of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the 2021 draft. The Broncos took him in the third round in 2021, and though he didn’t know it yet, Meinerz was about to be the perfect right guard for Sean Payton, who became Denver’s head coach in 2023.
Throughout his time with the New Orleans Saints, Payton has always needed that right guard who could announce his presence with authority — think about how well the great Jahri Evans did that for him for years — and Meinerz has proven to have that perfect combination of mobility and killer instinct. It’s why Payton’s Broncos signed Meinerz to a four-year, $72 million extension with $24 million guaranteed in 2024.
If you want to know how well it’s worked out, look no further than the first of rookie R.J. Harvey’s two rushing touchdowns against the Dallas Cowboys last Sunday in Denver’s 44-24 win. Meinerz got to the second level immediately, pancaked linebacker Shemar James, worked up further to take out safety Alijah Clark, and then turned around to give edge-rusher Jadeveon Clowney some aggro.
This is perhaps the greatest blocking rep we’ll see all season from anyone at any level of football. Long live Quinn Meinerz!
Right Tackle: Zach Tom, Green Bay Packers
The Packers are benefiting from Jordan Love’s outstanding play of late, which Love has pulled off with a receiver group and offensive line that has been in some injury trouble for a while. Here’s what we know: When Love has Zach Tom as his right tackle, things tend to go much better. Tom, the 2022 fourth-round pick out of Wake Forest, has missed some time with oblique and back issues this season, and his excellence has been just as obvious in his absence as with his presence.
With Tom on the field, the Packers have an Offensive EPA of +0.19, and a Passing EPA of +0.35. Without him, those numbers drop to +0.11 and +0.16, respectively. With Tom, Green Bay’s sack rate plummets from 6.6% to 1.7%, the pressure rate goes from 39.7% to 21.7%, and the block pressure rate moves from 18.2% to 8.7%.
Which is why Zach Tom is kind of a big deal — and why the Packers desperately need him on the field to fulfill their championship aspirations.
