Halfway Through The Season, NFC South Is Wide Open

[Hoenheim]

New Orleans Saints  5-2

Carolina Panthers 5-3 

Atlanta Falcons 4-3

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2-5 

 

Next game against the Falcons is huge. There's pretty much no way the Saints will lose to the Bucs next week and the Falcons are right behind us. If we lose and the Falcons, Saints win next week division will look like this : 

Saints 6-2

Falcons 5-3

Panthers 5-4 

Bucs 2-6 

A loss to the Falcons could immediately self destruct our chance to win the division and require us to pretty much sweep the divisonal games afterwards to stand any chance.This week 9 matchup against ATL is by far the most important game of the season thus far. Here's what it looks like if we win, Saints win , Falcons lose, Bucs lose (the optomistic outlook imo)

Saints 6-2

Panthers 6-3  (keep in mind saints still have a head to head win against us, so even if our records were the same they would still by 1st in division)

Falcons 4-4

Bucs 2-6 

We're basically going to be in a head to head race against the Saints for the division if we can string together some wins here. 

[Carolina Cajun]

I wouldn't consider the Bucs game a sure win for the saints.  Division games are crazy, I think its likely the saints win, but not a lock.  As for us, I think we carry the edge being at home with the Falcons also playing some pretty rough football lately.

[t96]

Tampa NO is a toss up. Tampa has had good games this year and Aints didn't look so hot this week. We need to beat the Falcons this week for sure. No doubt.

[Hoenheim]

5 minutes ago, thomas96 said:

Tampa NO is a toss up. Tampa has had good games this year and Aints didn't look so hot this week. We need to beat the Falcons this week for sure. No doubt.

Too bad we're 1-2 at home . I believe we'll have to score over 20 to win against the Falcons . 

[Hoenheim]

Wow didn't notice we start the first half of the season with so many away games. Five away games to three home games . 

[Castavar]

24 minutes ago, Hoenheim said:

Wow didn't notice we start the first half of the season with so many away games. Five away games to three home games . 

Kind of a blessing in disguise considering the way we've played at home.

[hepcat]

Bucs can definitely beat the Saints. The NFL is a weird beast. Division games like that can easily go either way.

[Mr. Scot]

I'm not sure it really matters much.

I don't honestly believe we're good enough to win a playoff game.

[Thanatos]

The Bucs had the #1 passing attack in the league prior to that beatdown we just gave them on defense. They could easily take the game against the Saints who just almost lost to the Bears. Indeed, they really could have considering the refs absolutely flat out robbed Zach Miller of a TD and thus 4 points were taken off the board for Chicago.