Who wants to win the NFC South? Taking the temperature of the division at the season’s midpoint

Football is serious business in the South. People organize their weeks, their seasons, their lives around games, worshiping their teams like secular religion. The rest of the country stares in awe at the reverence the region has for football, and the excellence of the product on the field.

But hey, enough about the SEC. Let’s talk about the NFC South.

At nearly the season’s halfway point, the four teams of the NFC South range from “hey, they might have something going” good to “roadkill in the sun for nine hours” awful. You could see two teams reaching the playoffs and putting in a decent Super Bowl run, and you could see the division’s lone representative getting bounced in the wild card round by a mean, hungry NFC North runner-up. Everything’s on the table right now.

1. Atlanta Falcons (4-3, 3-0 in division)

Yeah, that record looks about right for this team, which oscillates between brilliance and incompetence on a weekly — no, make that quarter-by-quarter — basis. You never quite know whether you’re going to get Kirk Cousins throwing darts and Bijan Robinson breaking massive, cinematic gains, or Cousins throwing backbreaking INTs and Robinson getting stood up at the line.

Excluding an easy romp over Carolina, Atlanta has won three games by a total of nine points, including miracle finishes over Philadelphia and the Bucs. That’s not sustainable over the long term, and last week’s ugly loss to Seattle is proof that a team has to rely on more than good vibes and favorable bounces.

Atlanta’s defense is the worst in the league on pass protection, 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 passing yardage, but Atlanta hasn’t had its bye yet, so add an asterisk there. Atlanta’s rushing attack is a grind-it-out type; 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 bend-a-lot defense. Is that enough to win them playoff games? Not yet. Is it enough to win them the division? It has been so far.

Immediate future: Opportunity lies waiting. A crucial rematch with Tampa Bay awaits this weekend, followed by winnable games against Dallas, New Orleans and Denver. This ought to be the point in the season where the Falcons drop the hammer — but there’s a good chance Atlanta will drop it 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 standings aren’t determined by weight. Tampa Bay has been on the wrong end of a heartbreaker (the shocking OT loss to Atlanta), a whomping (last week’s 41-31 Baltimore defeat) and a head-scratcher (losing to Denver? Really?). But on the plus side, Baker Mayfield has been one of the season’s reclaimed revelations, 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 respectable, too, 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 is slinging it with enough tenacity and accuracy to outrun a struggling defense.

Injuries are the key concern for the Bucs; losing Chris Godwin to a likely season-ending ankle injury is a ruinous 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’ve got as much potential as the Bucs do, they’re especially hard to handle.

Immediate future: Murderous. A really-need-to-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 bye. Combined with last week’s game against Baltimore, this is as tough a stretch as any team has had to face this season. We’ll know a lot more about Tampa Bay after this stretch.

3. New Orleans Saints (2-5, 1-2 in division)

That sure turned quickly, didn’t it? After New Orleans hammered Dallas 44-19 in Week 2, we were all ready to proclaim the Saints the Dark Horse of the NFC and Klint Kubiak the next Offensive Genius Of The Future. And … that’s why they don’t play the Super Bowl after Week 2.

In the five games since the Dallas triumph, the Saints have averaged 17 points a game, have only broken 13 in two of them and lost all of them. Granted, some of that is because of Derek Carr’s injury necessitating a midseason hot swap to rookie Spencer Rattler.

The only hope they really have is for Carr to get back on the field and the offense to return to its Weeks 1 and 2 glory, because the defense hasn’t been able to stop anything or anyone (dead last in yards allowed, 28th in points allowed, last in yards per play).

Problem is, this is all one big shell game. The Saints have always operated the salary cap like a man paying off one credit card with another, kicking the debt and the day of reckoning down the road, season by season. The reaper is coming soon, and it’s going to take years for this franchise to recover. Sad to say, this might be as good as it gets for awhile in the Big Easy.

Immediate future: A who-knows game against the Chargers this weekend, followed by a chance at respectability with two straight in-division games (Carolina, Atlanta) and a Jameis Winston reunion against Cleveland.

4. Carolina Panthers (1-6, 0-2 in division)

And, well, here we are. There is a chance that if you flip a coin 100 times, it will come up tails 100 times. And if you have Panthers quarterbacks flipping the coin, there’s a good chance it will get intercepted at least half the time. Everything that can go wrong with 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, over and over again.

When 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young flamed out 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 upon. The coaching staff has seemed overmatched at every turn; yes, Carolina has a Week 3 victory over Las Vegas, for what that’s worth, but every single one of its losses has been by double digits. Carolina has already suffered losses by 37, 23, 26 and 33 points this year; that’s indicative of across-the-board failure to execute.

The stats aren’t encouraging in any phase of the game. Carolina has thrown more interceptions this year than anyone other than the Raiders. The defense has surrendered more passing touchdowns than any team outside of Jacksonville and Houston. The offense ranks 29th in total yards per game. Nothing is working, and nothing looks promising, regardless of who’s taking the snaps.

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 draft No. 1, what’s it going to be for Carolina? No options seem particularly enticing for Carolina right now. When does college basketball start.