I had the opportunity to drop in at the NFC South on Sunday and I had so much fun. The 43 – 37 overtime victory of the New Orleans Saints over the Atlanta Falcons is exactly what I want from football this year. The Quarterbacks, which are more protected than ever, have been airing it out. The rookie receiver dominated his match-up and in the end, Drew Brees remained colder than ice.
Last year, the NFC South had three playoff teams. This year, so far, only the 1-2 Falcons have a losing record and their losses were against Philadelphia Eagles and the Saints. There’s no other division that has more than two teams with winning records so far and this explains why every game between the two NFC South teams is a highly anticipated game and each division win is such a huge relief.
Cameron Jordan, Saints’ defensive end, said that the win became much sweeter when they found out that weren’t much more room for them to grow. He believes that they can still improve and that they are aware that they have to improve starting next week.
The Saints haven’t really played as well as they would like to so far, most especially when it comes to defense. Last week, they mentioned about diversifying their attack, however, 25 of the 39 completions of Brees last Sunday all went to Michael Thomas or Alvin Kamara. Just like in an online casino, there’s still plenty of work to do. However, they are 2-1 and a road win would be such a big deal if there will be a tight race in the division.
Carolina also ended up 2-1 and had a Week 2 loss against Atlanta. The only encouraging thing for Panthers is that they have scored 31 points in each of the previous two games they played. They must have some things going downfield with their receivers, however, the early success has led Cam Newton buying into the offense of Norv Turner and the defense will get even better in the coming two weeks once Thomas Davis returns from his suspension.
Meanwhile, Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a surprising 2-1 win despite getting knocked off at home by the Pittsburgh Steelers last Monday night and what will happen to their quarterback situation still remains to be seen. However, the offense is well capable of achieving big things and they seem tougher now than they were in the previous year.
Unfortunately, the Atlanta Falcons might be cooked. The season-ending injury of Ricardo Allen last Sunday means that they don’t have starting safeties now. The defense of Dan Quinn is built upon the idea of funneling the passing game of other teams in the middle and learning from star players that can clean the area. These guys have all gone to injury, and in a division such as this one, there’s little margin for error. This explains why Sunday’s loss has hurt Atlanta so much.