LogFAQs > #973908619

NFC South

1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2. San Juan Orcas
3. Atlanta Falcons
4. Carolina Panthers

The Buccaneers lack the talent of the Orcas and Falcons, and their QB and HB are real question marks, but what the hell, let's be playful here at the end and say they shock the league to a division crown. They have a really good OL, an underrated receiving corps, and they overhauled the defense quite a bit. They are coming off of an 8-8 season with a team that was far less talented than this one. I think that they can get additional wins here to take the division. It will depend on former #1 overall pick QB Trevor Largent to do a hell of a lot better at living up to his draft status and for third-year HB Alvin Kamara to make a big statement in his first season as a starter. It might come down to their ability to beat divisional foes as they end the season with facing the Orcas once and Falcons twice in the final four weeks.

The Orcas went all-in on a Super Bowl run last season, and it paid off. Now they are under AI control and players like HB Knowshon Moreno, WR Ted Ginn, and RT Andrew Whitworth are now retired. The defense sans MLB Telvin Smith remains in place, but the offense will need to keep up to remain Super Bowl contenders. QB Jameis Winston is coming off of an unexpected QB of the Year campaign, but given that was his first year as a starter, it's hard to imagine that he will replicate it. Their starting HB is 2nd-year player Nyheim Hines, and HBs are notoriously slow to becoming good starters, so even with them getting Jeff Zeigler back for a second stint with the team, I have to imagine that the offense is due for some regression. The Orcas only won the division the past two seasons with late surges and a collapse by the Falcons, so it wasn't as if they were running away with things even with better offensive talent. They can easily win the division again though, and they honestly are probably the favorites, but I'd like to see how they start offensively out of the gate while they largely face questionable defenses.

The Falcons are coming off of back-to-back 9-7 seasons with no playoffs to show for it. This offense is loaded on paper, but with top WR Allen Hurns out for the season, they might struggle against an early schedule featuring some of the best secondaries in the league. HB David Johnson is one of the best in the league, and might be our best once Doug Martin retires, but he's good to miss a couple games a season, and they no longer have a Kenny Hamilton to step in for a few starts. The defense has been mostly solid the past few years, but FS T.J. McDonald hasn't come close to replicating his sensational first season with the team, and losing 2nd-year DT D.J. Reader for the season is a big blow for an ascending front seven. Everyone is solid enough, but losing some ascending, solid players for an entire season takes away some competitive edges, and that means that the team will have to remain largely healthy. The Falcons have not had great injury luck over the years, so that might be asking too much out of them. Still, I can easily see the Falcons winning the division or a wild card with their star power. They just can't be dealt more bad injury news.

I actually think that the Panthers offense can be pretty decent. HB Tevin Coleman had his most efficient year, WR Davante Adams gets a full season with the team, and the OL has performed better than you think. It feels like they can regress to the mean and finish outside of the bottom 10. Moving on from some failed draft picks and trying to salvage QB Lamar Jackson's career though left the Panthers with over $10 mil cap penalties this season, and the result is a pretty ugly front seven. Talent issue aside, what's really alarming is how this group of players are not prepared to stop the run. The irony is that their best run-defender is probably DT Michael Thomas who was only elevated to a starter after they cut Sione Fua for cap reasons (who was inferior to Thomas in run-defense I might add). Assuming health holds, they will have eight games against teams who had a 1200+ yard rusher last season, a game against Mark Ingram, and four games against former first rounders getting their first crack at the full-time gig. This could be a long defensive season for the team. At least the secondary looks very good. The Panthers were one of a handful of teams to improve their record in each of the past two seasons, but for that to continue to a third, they would need to finish .500 or better, and I think their defense will prevent that.