The NFC South can be evenly separated with good teams and bad teams. Since 2015, each team has had, at least, an 11-win season and a deep run in the playoffs, but it’s been a two-team division for the past two years, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints leading the way.
There’s nothing to suggest that anything will change this season. The Buccaneers aren’t slowing down with Tom Brady, the Saints will hopefully have an answer to the question: “Is Jameis Winston the solution at quarterback?”, and the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons will be battling it out to not finish bottom of the division.
All four teams will be heading into the season with strengths and weaknesses, but what are they?
Atlanta Falcons
Biggest Strength: A unicorn tight end
Kyle Pitts has only played 17 games, but he’s already bound for stardom. His first season in the NFL was an outright success as he became only the second-ever rookie tight end to eclipse 1000 receiving yards. Team success eluded Pitts and the Falcons, and he only had one touchdown catch, but it’s clear they have something special with the former fourth overall pick.
There aren’t many tight ends, who can do what Pitts does. His positional versatility allows him to line up just about anywhere on offense, demonstrated by the fact he spent most of his time aligned out wide in 2021. He’s too fast for linebackers and too strong for cornerbacks. He’s the definition of a mismatch.
Things might be slow-moving for Pitts in 2022. The Falcons’ offense isn’t blessed with a ton of talent, but that just presents more opportunities to showcase his divine gifts. At just 21 years old, Pitts is already the best player on the Falcons’ offense and could be viewed as the best tight end in the league in short order.
Biggest Weakness: Pass Rush
It’s going to be a tough year for the Falcons. Their failed pursuit for Deshaun Watson ended with the team being forced to trade away long-time starting quarterback Matt Ryan to the Indianapolis Colts. Ryan’s time with the team was likely coming to an end in the next few years, but trading him has left the Falcons with a lot of dead money. No team is eating more dead money than the Falcons ($63 million, per Spotrac) in 2022, which has made roster development increasingly more difficult.
The Falcons have plenty of holes on their roster. Their pass rush was the worst in the NFL last season by a wide margin, and there’s not much reason to believe that it’ll be much better in 2022. Their pass-rush win rate was 28th in the NFL, per ESPN, but their pressure rate of 16.7 percent was dead last, and no team had fewer sacks (18). That contributed to the Falcons allowing the third-most points and having the third-worst third-down defense in the NFL.
Drafting Arnold Ebikitie will help strengthen the Falcons pass rush, and Grady Jarrett will likely improve upon his single sack season from last year, but the Falcons just don’t have many options off the edge. They’ll struggle to pressure the quarterback.
Carolina Panthers
Biggest Strength: Defensive Line
It’s hard to separate the Panthers defense. The front seven are incredibly talented, and the secondary is young and explosive. It would be easier to say that the entire Panthers defense is the team’s biggest strength – and technically, that’s true, but it’s also a cop-out. Instead, let’s hone in on the defensive line.
The 2021 Panthers defense was one of the surprise units in the NFL. They were second in the league in yards allowed, behind only the Buffalo Bills, and were 7th in pressure rate. There was talent at every spot on the defensive line. Brian Burns and Haason Reddick were both dynamic edge defenders, combining for 95 total pressures and 20 sacks. Yetur Gross-Matos was a good rotational rusher and a competent run defender, and the interior trio of Derrick Brown, DaQuan Jones, and Morgan Fox made life difficult on the interior.
The Panthers lost Haason Reddick, Morgan Fox, and DaQuan Jones in free agency, which could disrupt their continuity, but Burns and Brown were arguably the two best players on the line in 2021, and the Panthers have done a good job retooling. Adding former Commanders defensive lineman, Matt Ioannidis, is a stroke of genius. Ioannidis has been one of the more underappreciated defenders in the NFL over the last five years.
If he can stay healthy, and if Brown, Burns, and Gross-Matos can go from strength to strength, the Panthers defense will again be one of the better units in the NFL. Although, this time it won’t be a surprise.
Biggest Weakness: Quarterback
Like the defense in 2022, this won’t be a surprise. The Panthers quarterback situation has been a murky, univiting mess. Ever since Cam Newton’s decline, the Panthers have had no direction or consistency at the quarterback position, but trading for Sam Darnold was just the tip of the iceberg.
Darnold’s first season with the Panthers started well. He completed 68 percent of his passes for close to 1200 yards, 5 touchdowns and 3 interceptions, adding another 5 rushing touchdowns. Things were good for the Panther offense and Darnold, until the inevitable occurred. In his next eight games (Darnold missed Weeks 10-15), he completed just 55 percent of his passes and threw 4 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Just as he did in his three seasons with the New York Jets, Darnold imploded and, as a result, so did the Panthers season. The front office drafted Matt Corral to challenge Darnold in 2022, but with Darnold still slated to be the starter, the Panthers offense will struggle to move the ball downfield and generate points.
New Orleans Saints
Biggest Strength: Secondary
Despite losing Marcus Williams in free agency, a huge loss given that he’s an elite safety, the Saints still ended the offseason with one of the strongest secondaries in the NFL – it’s entirely possible that they also got better.
The cornerback spots have stayed the same – and that’s a good thing. Marshon Lattimore bounced back from a poor 2020 season to re-insert himself into the conversation as one of the best cornerbacks in the game. Across from him is Paulson Adebo, a player eliciting rave reviews from the Saints. His rookie season wasn’t spectacular, but it gave credence to those feelings – he could be a big part of the Saints defense.
Replacing Williams was the double salvo of Marcus Maye and Tyrann Mathieu. Two great safeties who can both perform at a high level in coverage or adequately as run defenders. It also means that the Saints now have a solid starter at every position in the secondary, including C.J. Gardner-Johnson in the slot. The Saints have consistently been among the NFL’s defensive elite for a few years now, and the secondary has often been a key reason as to why. This might be the best secondary in the NFL.
Biggest Weakness: Offensive Guard
There were a few contenders for this. The obvious one being Jameis Winston at quarterback. Winston is heading into his second season as the starter in New Orleans. His first season started well – the Saints were 5-2 and Winston had thrown 14 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions prior to tearing his ACL in Week 8 against the Buccaneers. There are still question marks, but we’ll head in a different direction: the guard position. Both of them.
Interior protection isn’t as highly valued as protection on the edge, but getting through the A gap (the gap between the center and guard) is the quickest way to the quarterback – if the guard play isn’t up to scratch, it puts a lot of pressure on the center to cover. If there’s an issue at both guard spots, then teams should be worried. The Saints starting right guard, Cesar Ruiz, gave up five sacks and 33 total pressures in 2021, while Calvin Throckmorton and Andrus Peat both had pass-blocking grades of sub-45 – Peat had a pass-blocking grade of 20.0, per PFF.
Ruiz, the Saints first round pick in 2020, has struggled in his first two years in the NFL, while Peat hasn’t ever been known for his consistency as a pass-blocker. In between them is Erik McCoy, who has the potential to be special, but there’s a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. Poor guard play could completely derail a Saints offense that will be slowly finding its feet with Winston.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Biggest Strength: Strength at Quarterback
Potential purgatory didn’t last too long for the Buccaneers. Things looked bleak upon the news that Tom Brady was retiring after the 2021 season, but the 7-time Super Bowl champion didn’t stay out in the wilderness for long. It took him a grand total of 40 days to decide that there was unfinished business in the NFL.
Brady will be 45 years old when the season comes around, but there’s every reason to believe he’ll still be one of the three or four best quarterbacks in the league. His 2021 season was, arguably, the greatest statistical season of his career. Brady led the league in pass attempts, completions, passing yards, passing touchdowns, and yards per game, all while being a 44 year old man. To top it off, the Buccaneers offense led the NFL in EPA per play.
Again, Brady was 44 and the Buccaneers had the best offense in the league. It would be totally incomprehensible to imagine had Brady not redefined the way we view older quarterbacks – but he’s still one in a million. What he’s doing will likely never be done again. And because Brady is back for his 23rd season in the NFL, the Buccaneers are a Super Bowl favourite once more.
Biggest Weakness: Pass Coverage
The Buccaneers “weak link” isn’t that much of a weak link in comparison to the rest of the NFL, but a platoon of streaky corners can be considered a concern – especially in the postseason. The Buccaneers Super Bowl defense ended with Cooper Kupp torching the defense for 183 yards and a game-winning catch for 44 yards on some busted coverage. It wasn’t a good outing for the secondary.
Streaky pass coverage was the theme of the season. The Buccaneers allowed 238.9 passing yards per game, and while that could be down to teams playing from behind and committing to a pass-heavy offense, a lot of it can also be chalked up to the game plan. No one could run the ball against the Buccaneers – but they had success in the air.
Injuries plagued the cornerback room, with Sean Murphy-Bunting and Carlton Davis both playing just over half the schedule, but their reputation as streaky corners, along with Jamel Dean remains. All three are talented, but can be targeted successfully.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.