Thursday, August 16, 2018

NFL Preview: NFC South

Yay football.  Granted, it’s only preseason, but still…  Some football is better than no football.  I mean, the Giants haven’t looked great, but what can you do?
For those keeping score, this post marks the halfway point in the joint Casa Cabeza / Hoosier on the Potomac NFL divisional preview series.  This week, we turn our attention to the NFC/AFC South.  The AFC South is Joe’s favorite division in that it’s home to the Colts (boo!) and the Titans (yay!), but that’s for later.  For now, we’re talking NFC.
As always, if you missed our previous installments, they’re archived below.
NFC East
AFC East
NFC North
AFC North
From what I’ve read, the NFC South is the experts’ consensus pick as the best division in football.  So.  If you’ve followed this series from the beginning, you may already know what I’m about to say.  
Yes, I’m skeptical.
The experts always predict that next season to look like last season.  
Maybe that’s true if the Saints and Falcons can both live up to the hype and if Carolina can avoid regressing.  Hell, it’s even possible that Tampa improves.  But every team in this division has its share of issues, and even the Saints, who look stacked behind an ageless Drew Brees, have reasons they ought to be nervous.
Accountability: Last year, I said that the Falcons would start slow but pull it together, that the Bucs would struggle to keep Jameis Winston upright, that Cam Newton would progress professionally and learn to play the pocket-passer game, and that Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees was just too old to lead his team to the playoffs again.
I was a little more than half right.  The Falcons did start slow, but they never quite played up to their potential.  They made a run deep into the playoffs, but the season was still a disappointment considering their talent.  Similarly, Cam Newton and company won 11 games and made it to the playoffs, but Cam’s game has actually stagnated.  I love to watch Newton play, but reality is that he has to run in order to be effective.  I was also right that the Bucs would struggle; I was wrong about how much.  I thought they’d be decent to mediocre.  They were terrible.  Finally, the Saints were nowhere near the kind of train wreck I foresaw.  Somehow, they became a run-first behemoth, and it totally worked.  They finished one busted coverage play short of the NFC Championship game.
New Orleans Saints
I still want to be bearish on the Saints, but there’s just no way.  Sure, QB Drew Brees is 39.  He doesn’t have as much arm strength as he used to, and historically, a lot of NFL quarterbacks have seen precipitous declines in their physical performance once they’ve hit 40.  The thing is, the current iteration of the Saints doesn’t need Brees to be anything more than—gasp—a game manager.  The Saints are using their quarterback’s experience to get the team into the right plays against opposing defenses.  But then they’re running right at people while asking Brees to do just enough to keep defenses honest.
That’s working.
Moreover, the Saints return an astonishing 21 starters from last year’s playoff squad.  Their backfield is excellent with running backs Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara, and they have wide receivers who can get the job done.  WR Michael Thomas made averaged more than 100 catches a year in his first two years in the League.  WR Ted Ginn Jr. can still serve as a legit threat down-the-field.  Even the Saints’ O-Line is battle-tested.  They rolled against a terrific Vikings’ defensive front in the playoffs.  They should be good again so long as they can stay healthy.
Historically, the Saints defense has been their weak spot, but even there, they’ve improved.  The back end might be better than the D-Line, but DE Cameron Jordan is excellent.  The rest of the line is probably a little better against the run than the pass, but considering the strength of the team’s secondary, maybe that’s not as bad as it could be.  First round pick DE Marcus Davenport out of UTSA might improve the Saint’s pass rush as well, but most scouting reports seem think of Davenport as more a developmental project with upside than as an immediate impact player.  Still, it seems unlikely that a first-round pass rusher will hurt the Saints’ defensive rotation.
ESPN: +3.6 (6th)
Over/Under: 9.5 wins
I’m still skeptical that Brees can continue to play at a high level for more than another year.  Really, I’m expecting him and Tom Brady both to fall apart sooner rather than later.  I’d probably pick New Orleans to go over 9.5 wins in 2018, but if they haven’t started thinking about life after Brees, that’s a bad mistake.

Carolina Panthers
I took the hype a little too seriously last season.  I love watching Cam Newton, and I legitimately believed that he would turn the corner in 2017.  I therefore put him high on my fantasy draft list and wound up watching most of his games as a result.  That was frustrating because the Panthers never quite lived up to expectations.  They were good, sure, but they weren’t great, most especially because they wound up trotting WR Derrick Funches out there as their would-be number one.  
Ugh.
Maybe new OC Norv Turner can help the Panthers out-perform.  He has free agent WR Torrey Smith to help and first round draft pick D.J. Moore.  That will allow Funchess to slide back into what should be his natural role, possession receiver.  TE Greg Olson is also a big possession-type target.  Really, these guys have all the tools needed to create an elite passing game.
But.  RB Jonathan Stewart has become a Giant, and that means Christian McCaffrey has to be The Man.  I don’t love it.  McCaffrey is a phenomenal receiver out of the backfield, but he’s undersized, and I don’t much care for his game between the tackles.  Really, I’d rather see free agent RB C.J. Anderson get the heavy carries in the middle, but that means taking arguably the team’s best offensive player off the field.  If nothing else, such a move tips that a middle run isn’t coming.
By comparison, the Panthers’ defense has been elite for a while.  LB Luke Kuechly is truly elite, and he’s got a terrific cast around him in the team’s front seven.  The biggest problem is that a lot of these guys are getting older.  Kuechly himself has struggled with concussions, and DE Julius Peppers is elite—but also 38 years old.  Meanwhile, the Panthers’ secondary is less good, which means that even a small drop in production from the front could result in a dramatic reversal for the defense as a whole, especially with Drew Brees and Matt Ryan in the division.
ESPN: +2.2 (9th)
Over/Under: 8.5 wins
I want to believe.  I really do.  But the Panthers are in the same spot the Giants found themselves in before 2017.  Which is to say that they were just a few excellent defensive plays away from an all too forgettable season.  Maybe Turner can work some magic with Newton, Moore, and McCaffrey, and if that happens, this team could still win the division.  Alas, it’s just as likely that these guys take a step back as some critical players in their defensive front struggle to stay on the field.  The team is already struggling with injuries along the O-Line and with the perennial negative press about Cam.  I don’t know that the wheels come off, but it’s tough picking them to win more than eight games.

Atlanta Falcons
I thought the Falcons would be the best team in football last year, and if talent was the most important thing, maybe they would have been.  But somehow the birds never seemed to get it all the way together despite making it to the NFC Championship game.  This was a team without any obvious holes that still somehow struggled to compete.  Last year’s Falcons put up more than 360 yards/game in total offense, which was good for 8th in the League.  But they were just 15th in points, and though QB Matt Ryan threw for 20 touchdowns and almost 4,100 yards, he also threw 12 very costly interceptions.  That inconsistency cost them dearly.
Atlanta has some decent running backs, but it’s receivers Julio Jones and Mohamed Sanu who kill you.  If that’s not enough, the team added former Alabama WR Calvin Ridley during the draft.  Plus they have TE Austin Hooper.  Who can cover all these guys?
Unfortunately, Atlanta’s certain to need all those pass catchers because their defense is gonna take a step back.  Probably a big step.  The Falcons lost NT Dontari Poe and edge rusher Adrian Clayborn to free agency, and that ought to concern their fans.  They still have Takk McKinley and Vic Beasley, but I don’t think a guy like Poe can be replaced solely by relying on speed around the edges.  I expect Atlanta’s safeties will have to come up more in run support in 2018, and that can have weird second-order effects.  Maybe 3rd round pick DT Deadrin Senat from USF will help hold the middle, but man, that is asking a lot from a rookie 3rd round pick.
ESPN: +2.7 (8th)
Over/Under: 9 wins
If the universe made any sense, the Falcons would win this division in a walk.  However, I doubt the wisdom of using a 1st round pick on a wide receiver for a team that already has Julio Jones and company.  Anybody and everybody is going to run at this defense, and that’s probably going to work.  The Saints and Panthers are both run-first teams.  So sure, this offense might dominate, but they’ve also shone themselves prone to mistakes in pressure situations.  The Falcons should still probably hit 10 wins, but there’s definitely an opportunity here for run heavy teams like Carolina or New Orleans to steal a few games.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
QB Jameis Winston is entering his fourth season.  In theory, this is a team that ought to be entering its playoff window, and a year ago, that’s what it looked like—if you closed one eye and squinted.  Then the team went 5-11, and it looked like the wheels were coming off.  Winston has about as much physical talent as anyone, but he’s had trouble staying healthy, and he’s never quite made the jump to successful NFL quarterback.  Folks are still looking at him to “develop” four years in, and that’s not a good sign.  Oh by the way, he’s also facing a 3-game suspension coming for bad conduct.
Meanwhile, the Bucs averaged less than 4 yards/carry last year.  But if you can’t throw, and you can’t run, it’s hard to win football games.  The team has spent the offseason moving guys around on the O-Line.  Catchphrase: I’m skeptical.
You still want to believe, right?  But what if I told you that the Bucs were also last in defense last year?  Okay, so they brought in former Giants’ DE Jason Pierre Paul and picked Washington DT Vita Vea.  They signed free agent DT Beau Allen and DE Vinny Curry from the Eagles.  Those guys ought to give them a boost, but still…  Maybe Vita Vea works out, but the rest of those guys were, like, the second-best players at their positions on their old teams.  That’s fine for role players, but it’s not how you rebuild your defense from scratch.
ESPN: -2.6 (22nd)
Over/Under: 6.5 wins
Smash the under.  This is a dumpster fire.  Signing JPP and making a bunch of minor moves along the O-Line is not going to fix anything.  It’s painting over dirt.  Winston is still injury-prone, and he’s still not great at hitting the deep ball, even when he’s got a receiver free over the top.  That’s a bad combination on a team that also doesn’t run the ball and who can’t stop anybody.  
Call me when these guys either find a defense or a running game.  Until then—sell!
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