The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have received the previous three NFC South titles.
At 3-1, they as soon as once more lead the division and might enhance once they face their closest rivals (2-2 Atlanta Falcons and 2-2 New Orleans Saints) in Weeks 5 and 6 Benefits.
However because the wild-card Buccaneers received the Tremendous Bowl on the finish of the 2020 season, no crew within the NFC South has superior previous the divisional spherical of the playoffs.
With wins in Atlanta on Thursday evening and in New Orleans 10 days later, Tampa Bay can turn out to be one of many NFC’s high early contenders. However dropping a sport or two creates the mediocre stalemate that has characterised the division in current seasons.
The Carolina Panthers look like dealing with an ongoing rebuilding challenge at 1-3 after going 2-15 a 12 months in the past and final making the playoffs in 2017. The Eagles and the Saints, who final made the playoffs in 2020, made huge strikes within the offseason designed to assist them beat the Buccaneers and turn out to be contenders.
However thus far, the outcomes have been common.
Each groups have employed extremely regarded assistant coaches as offensive coordinators, with Atlanta hiring former Rams quarterbacks coach/move passing coordinator Zach Robinson and New Orleans bringing in a former 49ers offensive passing specialist Clint Kubiak.
The Falcons, who completed 7-10 final season and have been two video games behind the second-place Saints, signed free agent quarterback Kirk Cousins to assist first-year head coach Raheem Morris. signed a four-year contract price $180 million.
However Atlanta has misplaced two of its first three video games by averaging lower than 17 factors per sport and didn’t rating an offensive landing regardless of beating the Saints 26-24 final Sunday.
New Orleans has been as spectacular as any crew within the NFL by the primary two weeks, beating the Panthers 47-10 and the Cowboys 44-10 earlier than dropping to Atlanta at residence. Misplaced to the Eagles 15-12. The Saints will tackle the undefeated Tremendous Bowl champion Chiefs on the highway on Monday evening. They outscored their opponents 127-70, tying the undefeated Vikings for the NFL’s largest scoring benefit, however they solely… Achieved a break-even report (and misplaced one sport in the course of the event).
As for the Buccaneers, they defeated the Eagles 33-16 and notched two different spectacular wins, leaving the shocking Commanders (37-20) and Lions (20-16) as their solely of failure.
However two weeks in the past, Tampa Bay was simply defeated by the Broncos 26-7 at residence.
The upcoming back-to-back divisional highway video games shall be a very good measuring stick for the Buccaneers, with their sport in Detroit being their solely highway sport.
Groups thought-about contenders just like the Cowboys, Eagles, Packers, 49ers and Rams received off to sluggish begins, whereas the Commanders, Vikings and Seahawks seemed to be stronger competitors than usually anticipated who.
In the meantime, within the NFC South, continued mediocrity is the one label connected till somebody proves in any other case.
