NFC South through 9 Games, The Saints Are The Enemy

[Hoenheim]

Here are the current standings 

New Orleans Saints  6 - 2

Carolina Panthers 6 - 3 

Atlanta Falcons 4 - 4

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2 - 6 

Its looking like the Bucs are firmly in the basement. ATL is 4 - 4 but I believe they only have one divisional loss so they're not out of the race by any means. Their next couple games are against the Cowboys and Seahawks so they have a tough stretch coming up. I think we're only a half game behind the Saints which is great. Our next two games are extremely winnable (Dolphins, Jets), we have a bye coming up after next Monday Night against the Dolphins. Jets are by no means scrubs  though. Saints have the Bills, Redskins, and Rams coming up, so its defintely not a walk in the park for them either. I'm guessing the Bills will come out looking much better after that clunker against the Jets. 

So we win on Monday night, and Saints, Falcons, Bucs all lose, it division will look like this (ideal senario) :

Panthers 7 - 3

Saints 6 - 3 

Falcons 4 - 5 

Bucs 2 - 7 

Here's the nightmare senario where we lose and everyone else wins

Saints 7 - 2

Panthers 6 - 4 

Falcons 5 - 4

Bucs 3 - 6 

Thats still not terrible . We would be still on pace for a wild card spot and a chance to steal the division from the Saints near the end of the year if we keep winning divisional games.

 

So all and all, a pretty good start to the season especially given our coaching and general offensive woes . Defense is doing its job , in 5 out of 9 games  opponents have scored less than 20 against us, and 3 out of 9 games opponents have scored just 3 points.  Gave up more than 20 points only to really good QBs (Brees, Brady, Stafford, Wentz) .  

If we do end up getting a wild card like I'm currently predicting, we could be seeing the Saints in the playoffs.. if we keep stringing together wins , and assuming the saints also do the same, this showdown against the Saints at their place on 12/3 is huge. 

 

[ncsfinest21]

The december 3rd game is going to be huge regardless.  I can see the Bills beating the Saints. The Bills are the Panthers 2.0. They understand the Saints more than anybody out of our division. That will almost feel like a divisional game. We should handle the dolphins and Donkey kong suh. This would give us the 2nd spot in the playoffs. After the bye I see the Panthers catching rhythm with Olsen coming back. Olsen coming back with Funchess will definitely open up the deep ball for the offense. If Samuel learns how to develop and be that player we need him to be, there will be no way of stopping us. We have our check down in CMC and safety valve with Olsen. Then have Funchess as our mid along with olsen and Samuel being able to get downfield. This is still with Cam as a running threat and CMC and hopefully CAP as running. So it would open up everything.