The Atlanta Falcons have struggled since their Super Bowl appearance in 2016, but that will happen when you play in one of the NFL’s most consistently competitive divisions. The Falcons, Panthers and Saints have each been to the Super Bowl in recent memory — with three potential Hall of Fame quarterbacks battling it out over the past ten years.
With Carolina resorting to Chip Kelly levels of self-sabotage and moving on from former MVP Cam Newton, it appeared Atlanta would finally get a break in 2020 as the division came back down to earth.
The Buccaneers weren’t having it, though, as head coach Bruce Arians landed Tom Brady in free agency to replace interception-prone Jameis Winston. And just like that, the NFC South has another possible contender to go along with the Saints and Falcons.
In Touchdown Wire’s division rankings after the first wave of free agency, the new-look NFC South landed second on Michael Colangelo’s list. Check out some of what he had to say in the excerpt below:
The argument for the NFC South being the top division in the NFL is a strong one. They are neck and neck with the NFC West. The Saints will be back. They kept Drew Brees and added Emmanuel Sanders to their receiving corps. They had a strong running back duo in Alvin Kamara and Latavius Murray. The Saints even added some defensive help with Malcolm Jenkins.
We don’t need to rehash how the Bucs have improved. They already had the fifth-best defensive according to DVOA rankings and they are bringing mostly everyone back on the unity. They went from turnover machine Jameis Winston to Tom Brady who would rather chuck the ball into the ground than see it in a defender’s hands. The Bucs move from +3300 to win the Super Bowl to +1600.
The Falcons are trotting out an offense with a ton of first-round picks. They still need to figure out if Todd Gurley will be useful or not, but if he’s at 80-percent he is still an additional threat to an offense that has a ton of weapons. They could be a sneaky pick to make the playoffs.
Let’s not forget the NFL draft could change things, but with Brady, Brees and Ryan in place, the NFC South is going to be one of the most interesting divisions 2020.
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