Football is serious business in the South. People organize their weeks, their seasons, their lives around competitions and worship their teams like a secular religion. The rest of the country stares in awe at the region’s reverence for football and the excellence of the product on the field.
Anyway, enough about the SEC. Let’s talk about the NFC South.
Nearly halfway through the season, the four teams of the NFC South range from “hey, maybe they have something good” to “drive in the sun for nine hours” awful. You could watch two teams reach the playoffs and put together a decent Super Bowl run, and you could watch the division’s lone representative in the wild-card round get bounced by a mean, hungry NFC North runner-up. Everything is now on the table.
1. Atlanta Falcons (4-3, 3-0 in division)
Yeah, that record seems about right for this team, which goes back and forth between brilliance and incompetence on a weekly – no, count that quarter by quarter – basis. You never quite know whether you’ll have Kirk Cousins throwing darts and Bijan Robinson making huge, cinematic gains, or Cousins throwing grueling INTs and Robinson standing at the line.
Aside from an easy battle against Carolina, Atlanta has won three games by a total of nine points, including miraculous finishes against Philadelphia and the Bucs. That’s not sustainable in the long run, and last week’s ugly loss to Seattle is proof that a team has to rely on more than just good atmosphere and favorable results.
Atlanta’s defense is the worst in the league at pass stopping, allowing completions at a 72.2 percent clip. (On the plus side, Atlanta’s defense ranks second in yards allowed per catch, so at least they’re containing the damage.) The Falcons’ offense ranks fourth in total yards allowed, but Atlanta has Haven’t had a goodbye yet, so add an asterisk there. Atlanta’s rushing attack is of the grind-it-out variety; the longest rush this year is 28 yards, and only two teams rank lower than that.
In short, Atlanta has a competent but not yet explosive offense and a pliable defense. Is that enough to win them playoff games? Not yet. Is it enough to get them the division? The time has come.
Immediate future: The opportunity is waiting. A crucial rematch with Tampa Bay awaits this weekend, followed by winnable games against Dallas, New Orleans and Denver. This should be the point in the season where the Falcons drop the hammer, but there’s a good chance that Atlanta will drop the hammer on its own foot.
2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-3, 1-1 in division)
Pound for pound, the best team with the best quarterback in the division. But the rankings are not determined by weight. Tampa Bay has been on the wrong side of a heartbreaker (the shocking OT loss to Atlanta), a blow (last week’s 41-31 loss in Baltimore), and a head-scratcher (loss to Denver? Really?). But on the plus side, Baker Mayfield was one of the rebounding revelations of the season, leading an offense that ranks among the league’s best.
Tampa Bay ranks third in the league in points scored, and Mayfield leads the league in passing yards and touchdowns. The ground game is also respectable, ranking fourth in yards per attempt. The defense isn’t quite keeping pace, ranking near the bottom of the league in points allowed and total yardage, but Mayfield throws it with enough tenacity and accuracy to outrun a struggling defense.
Injuries are the main concern for the Bucs; Losing Chris Godwin to a likely season-ending ankle injury is a disastrous blow to Tampa Bay’s passing game, and both WR Mike Evans and defensive tackle Vita Vea, among many others, are less than 100 percent. Yes, injuries are part of the game, but when you have as much potential as the Bucs have, they are extremely difficult to deal with.
Immediate future: Murderous. A must-win game this weekend against Atlanta, followed by games against last year’s two Super Bowl teams – Kansas City and San Francisco – heading into the farewell game. Combined with last week’s game against Baltimore, this is as tough a task as any team has faced this season. After this stretch we will know a lot more about Tampa Bay.
3. New Orleans Saints (2-5, 1-2 in division)
That sure changed quickly, didn’t it? After New Orleans defeated Dallas 44-19 in Week 2, we were all ready to declare the Saints the Dark Horse of the NFC and Klint Kubiak the next offensive genius of the future. And… that’s why they won’t play the Super Bowl after week 2.
In the five games since the triumph in Dallas, the Saints have averaged 17 points per game, breaking just 13 points in two games and losing them all. Granted, some of that is due to Derek Carr’s injury, which necessitated a midseason hot swap for rookie Spencer Rattler.
The only hope they really have is that Carr gets back on the field and the offense returns to the glory of Weeks 1 and 2, because the defense hasn’t been able to stop anything or anyone (last in yards allowed, 28th in points allowed, last in yards per play).
The problem is that this is all one big shell game. The Saints have always handled the salary cap like a man paying off one credit card with another, paying off debt and day of reckoning season after season. The reaper is coming soon and it will take years for this franchise to recover. Sad to say, this may be as good as it gets in the Big Easy for a while.
Immediate future: A who-knows-game against the Chargers this weekend, followed by a chance for respect with back-to-back division games (Carolina, Atlanta) and a Jameis Winston reunion against Cleveland.
4. Carolina Panthers (1-6, 0-2 in division)
And yes, here we are. There’s a chance that if you toss a coin 100 times, it will come up tails 100 times. And if you have Panthers quarterbacks tossing the coin, chances are it will be intercepted at least half the time. Everything that can go wrong in this franchise has gone wrong… but the construction of that sentence takes some of the blame off the Panthers themselves. Things have gone wrong in Carolina because everyone – players, coaches, front office, owner – has actively made the wrong decision time and time again.
When 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young was released earlier this year, the Panthers turned to 14-year, five-team vet Andy Dalton, not exactly the kind of foundation you want to build your forever home on. The coaching staff seemed outmatched at every turn; yes, Carolina got a win over Las Vegas in Week 3, for what that’s worth, but all of her losses were double digits. Carolina has already suffered losses this year by 37, 23, 26 and 33 points; that points to an overall failure of implementation.
The statistics are not encouraging at any stage of the game. Carolina has thrown more interceptions this year than anyone other than the Raiders. The defense has given up more passing touchdowns than any team outside of Jacksonville and Houston. The offense ranks 29th in total yards per game. Nothing works and nothing looks promising, no matter who’s taking the photos.
Immediate future: Denver this week, then a Battle for the Basement with New Orleans, followed by a Tussle for the Top Pick with the Giants in Germany. Pride or a chance to become number 1, what will it be for Carolina? There are no options that seem particularly attractive for Carolina right now. When does college basketball start?
