Come on, now, turn that frown upside down!

Unless you bleed green/black and gold, you are feeling the sting of season’s end right now.

Your team has been dumped out of the playoffs, or never made it that far. Some fans had to endure a season where their team was never in the running from the outset.

But fear not, there is a silver lining for everybody, and we’re here to provide it. Each team has reason for optimism, and here’s a look at what really went right in 2010.

Denver Broncos

Brandon Lloyd played like a legitimate All-Pro receiver. Hands up who saw that coming. The NFL leader in receiving yards has always been a receiver who would flash talent, but make enough mistakes to wear out a welcome. So when he started off as hot as he did in 2010 we assumed his play would tail off. It never did.

Lloyd was arguably the league’s most consistent and effective deep threat, and was open far more than the Denver passing game could get him the ball. Can he keep it up? We wouldn’t like to wager but if he’s anything like the player we saw this year, it could be that Denver finally figured out the magic formula for getting the best from Brandon Lloyd.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Chiefs might have the best young secondary in the entire NFL. Brandon Flowers is the oldest of the starting five defensive backs (counting Javier Arenas as the slot corner) at just 24 years of age, and all of them look like they can play at this level.

Even if his form tailed off towards the end of the year, Flowers was one of the league’s best cornerbacks (receiving our second highest coverage grade), and was ably supported by Brandon Carr (career highlight: breaking up six passes versus Denver in week 13). To start two rookie safeties and see them not only perform solidly (Kendrick Lewis) but get better as the season went on (Eric Berry) bodes very well for this unit.

Oakland Raiders

Things are looking up for the Raiders on the defensive side of the ball, where draft picks and free agents both contributed plenty to their success in 2010. Former Cleveland Brown Kamerion Wimbley might have had the best season that nobody is talking about, transitioning from 3-4 OLB to 4-3 OLB (while playing as an end on a four man line in nickel) in the Raiders scheme and excelling.

Wimbley was effective presence as a pass rusher and against the run so much so that it earned him our highest grade for a 4-3 outside linebackers. Throw in the immediate impacts of draftees Lamarr Houston and Rolando McClain alongside veteran free agent pick up John Henderson, and that defense has been transformed.

San Diego Chargers

Nobody’s going to say it because the team kept finding new and creative ways to lose in 2010, but Philip Rivers might have been the best QB in football this past season. Peyton Manning gets credit for patching things together with unknown receivers, but Phillip Rivers turned Seyi Ajirotutu into a go-to big-play receiver at one point. As long as the Chargers have a healthy Rivers, they’ll always be competitive.

They could do a better job of helping themselves more on defense, and the easiest way is to get more of nose tackle Antonio Garay on the field. He gave the Chargers the presence they have been missing since Jamal Williams was in his prime, proving to be consistently dominant in the middle, and really crying out for more snaps in pass rushing situations.

Baltimore Ravens

Matt Birk has had an unforeseen resurgence in the middle of the Baltimore offensive line. Once a perennial Pro Bowler himself, Birk was the only player that could compare to the dominance of Nick Mangold over the season. For a player of Birk’s age, a season like the one he just had shows some real inherent ability and a reminder of how good he has been over his career.

Over on the other side of the ball, the Ravens hit a small jackpot with the cheap acquisition of Josh Wilson. Though it took them some time to figure it out, the Ravens finally got him on the field and he rewarded them with some excellent play down the stretch.

Cincinnati Bengals

You can’t really ask much more of a converted guard to perform as one of the league’s best left tackles. So the Bengals can be happy with what Andrew Whitworth is becoming. Impressive in all aspects of his play, it didn’t matter if Whitworth was protecting his QB’s blindside, sealing off a defender or getting out to set up a screen. He did it so well he finished the year our top-ranked tackle.

Though it took nearly three years to find out, there are signs that Jerome Simpson finally came out of his protective wrapping late in the season and looked like a viable and impressive player at receiver for the Bengals. He did struggle a bit with ball security, but he recorded a strong +3.3 PFF rating for his work as a receiver. His blossoming could really help overhaul a passing game in need of a makeover.

Cleveland Browns

OK so who predicted that Peyton Hillis would work out as arguably the best trade in the NFL and in the process make the Cleveland offense viable? While we’re at it, who would have predicted that from an Arkansas backfield that produced Felix Jones and Darren McFadden, Hillis would be the best HB of the bunch? It remains to be seen if it stays that way, but you really can’t overstate the importance of Hillis to Cleveland.

When he was healthy he was dominant, able to make good cuts and run clean through (or just jump over) people when necessary. He gave the Browns an identity on offense and really took the pressure off their sub-standard receivers and young or questionable passers. Time to load up for Cleveland and get back aboard the Hillis Express for 2011.

Houston Texans

I saw Arian Foster play down the stretch in 2009 and predicted all offseason that he was going to be the reason the Texans shied away from running back in the first round of the draft, and that he would be an effective weapon for them running the football in 2010. So, yay for me.

Turns out I was right about the draft part, sort of (they waited until the second round to pick Ben Tate) but I really undersold the impact Foster would have as a runner as he led the league in rushing. Foster is not only an effective runner, but a fine receiver out of the backfield and the focal point of a once predominantly pass heavy offense. That kind of balance and talent is hard to find.

Indianapolis Colts

The usual suspects of Peyton Manning, Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis all played well, so we won’t waste time telling you about them, but the play of Austin Collie (from just 420 snaps as he was limited by concussions) was particularly impressive. The impact he can have for the Colts, primarily from the slot, going forward shows you why the Colts were prepared to play the long-term game with his health and shut him down for the year even though they were likely to feature in the post-season.

It’s not a glamour spot, but in Adam Vinatieri and Pat McAfee the Colts had one of the league’s better kicking units in 2010. Vinatieri was as robotic as ever on clutch kicks and McAfee was a force on kickoffs. It’s easy to dismiss the small-yet-consistent advantage that gave the Colts week to week this year.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Any time you make a first-round draft pick that is universally condemned as a big reach, you’re under major pressure to get it right. Though injuries slowed Tyson Alualu later in the season, he showed more than enough when fully healthy early on to silence the naysayers.

It has taken him a few years, but Marcedes Lewis is really starting to live up to all that potential and then some. Lewis has always had the measurables that made people sit up and take notice, but his play has lacked consistency, even after a 2009 where he was too hot and cold. Lewis graded well across the board, which means he was even better than his touchdown figure indicated, and really earned the off season honors coming his way.

Tennessee Titans

Talk about getting the best out of a player. The Titans did something to Jason Babin that had him earn his way to the Pro Bowl, and on more than just raw numbers. This is particularly notable because it’s never looked likely before this season. Babin has had a moment here or there, but never looked like anything other than a part of a rotation. Until Tennessee got their hands on him.

Babin brought consistent pressure off the line for the Titans all season, and we actually tallied his sack total at 14, rather than the 12.5 the NFL gave him officially (we count half sacks as full sacks). That tally beats his sack total for his first five seasons in the league, and falls just 3.5 shy of matching his entire career sack total before this season.

Buffalo Bills

We’ve run the Kyle Williams bandwagon into the ground. Since he made it to Hawaii with a Pro Bowl berth and got at least one All-Pro vote, we’ll consider that one job done.

Elsewhere in Buffalo after winning the job, Ryan Fitzpatrick did enough to make the Bills seriously think about whether they can run with him in future. Given the Bills still had significant issues on the O-line, and the receiving corps was patchwork at best (albeit young and seemingly talented in places), the work Fitzpatrick did at times was impressive at times, and leave you confident he could at least look after the team until something better comes along.

Fitzpatrick had a knack for looking the way of Steve Johnson, and though Johnson had one of the worst receiving displays you’ll ever see (against Pittsburgh he dropped five balls), he did a lot of good with his 11 broken tackles tying for second of all receivers.

Miami Dolphins

No matter which way you slice it, this was an underachieving season for the Dolphins, but it did come with a lot of plus points. Cameron Wake finally got the playing time we (and many others) had been calling for, and responded with a well rounded, and Pro-Bowl caliber performance.

Paul Soliai improved as the season went on and was dominant from the nose tackle position by the end of the year. If he can play like that in future he will have earned every cent of any new contract coming his way. What looked like two of the weaker spots on the Miami roster turned into strengths by the end of it.

New England Patriots

Before the season began Danny Woodhead was a running back fighting to make the Jets final 53-man roster based largely on his desire on special teams. In the end the Jets elected to keep draft pick Joe McKnight and let Woodhead go. How grateful the Patriots are for that, turning Woodhead into a Wes Welker in the backfield for them. Woodhead’s ability to split out and become a receiver was huge for the Patriots, making it exceptionally difficult for opposing defenses to key on what the Patriots were going to do on offense by looking at personnel groupings.

Between Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez, Devin McCourty, Brandon Spikes, Jermaine Cunningham and Zoltan Mesko, the Patriots smashed their 2010 draft class clean out of the ballpark. How often do you get that many contributors play that well so soon? This team may have seen their season end in disappointing fashion, but the future should bring those smiles back.

New York Jets

Mike DeVito and Sione Pouha proved that their 2009 performance on the D-line in relief of Kris Jenkins was no fluke — both players showed up when Jenkins went down again. They’ve earned the right to be starters without the need for someone going down injured.

While Darrelle Revis may have been architect of his own demise with a lengthy holdout and hamstring injury that limited his effectiveness early in the season, his play down the stretch has been more than impressive enough for us to conclude that Revis Island is still a place all wide receivers should avoid. There isn’t a shutdown cornerback in the NFL like him.

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