As the NFL season kicks off tonight (FINALLY), it’s time for my annual NFC South season preview, guaranteed to be as wrong as you can get! (Yes, last year I had the Panthers going 7-9 and the Saints winning the division…oops)
It’s been a long, long road – 214 days, actually – since we saw our last real NFL action. You all remember, right? Von Miller made Cam Newton look like a pedestrian who accidentally wandered on to the biggest stage in all of sports, then we watched Newton act like a petulant child in the post game press conference. Meanwhile, Peyton Manning rode off into the sunset a two time Super Bowl champion, leaving the Denver Broncos in a state of quarterback confusion.
Man…those were some good times.
Carolina’s second Super Bowl failure ensured that the Saints and Buccaneers remained the only NFC South teams with Super Bowl rings, while the Panthers and Falcons have combined to go 0-3 in the big game.
But what is in store for this division this year? When I sat down to do my predictions, I noticed an uncomfortable trend – I was giving teams more wins than I thought they will, or should, have. Meanwhile, finding it very difficult to find one team in particular any wins at all.
All we know is based off of last season as well as preseason this year. It never fails. You think you know how a team will do because they were this good or bad last year, addressed this or that problem to help, and are supposed to build off recent success.
It never works that way, though, does it?
Prediction pieces are fun to do, fun to read, fun to debate, but in the end are a complete crap shoot. I mean, they play the games for a reason, right? If everyone predicted the Steelers and Cardinals to play in the Super Bowl, they wouldn’t cancel the season. Any given Sunday, you play to win the game, etc.
All that being said, here is my week by week predictions for the entire NFC South…
Next: Week One