THE NFC SOUTH

THE NFC SOUTH


By: Anthony Mosco



The New Orleans Saints coming off a shocking 13-3 season, upsetting the 14-2 Indianapolis Colts and star QB Peyton Manning in Super Bowl XLIV for the 1st championship in team history believe it or not has its consequences. While Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees and the gang where whooping it up the rest of the division took notice.

But let’s begin with the champs and rightfully so. With their high-powered offensive attack, led by QB Brees and WR Marques Colston, the offense put on an impressive air show during the season. Brees, one of the shortest QB’s in the league threw for 34 touchdown passes with only a staggering 11 picks. His counterpart in the air was standout Colston who caught 70 passes for over 1,000 yards and tying teammate Robert Meachem with 9 touchdown passes. Former Kim Kardashian boyfriend, Reggie Bush shared the rushing duties with breakout star Pierre Thomas who led the Saints with 6 TD’s on the ground to go along with 793 yards on 147 carries and the Saints also benefited from the help of Mike Bell. Plus loudmouth TE and former New York Giant Jeremy Shockey helped stabilize the offense with 48 receptions and 3 touchdowns.

Now the defense is where you win championships. You can score all the points you want but without a solid D you aren’t going anywhere. The Saints defense was led by veteran safety Darren Sharper who recorded 9 interceptions and 3 TDs. DT Will Smith led the team in sacks with 13. Another impact player on this Super Bowl winning team was former Jet linebacker Jonathan Vilma who led with 87 tackles and 3 picks himself.

There you have it. And now that Drew Brees is the new face of the Madden NFL 11, which hasn’t been too kind to previous participants, has a bull’s-eye on his back can he and the Saints break the curse? Only time will tell. Here are their challengers.



Number one threat to the Saints repeating are the Atlanta Falcons, led by pretty boy QB Matt “Matty Ice” Ryan and RB Michael Turner both need rebound years if they want to be mentioned in the same breath as the champs. Matt Ryan and the Falcons started the season off to a flying start defeating the Dolphins and Panthers with 5 touchdown passes and 1 pick in the 2 games combined. His favorite target down the field is Roddy White.

Ryan threw more interceptions than touchdowns last year, was sacked 10 times and missed time with a turf toe injury in week 12. Turner was also in and out of games with various injuries.

So for the Falcons to compete the priority is health and if that is intact it should be an interesting battle to keep our eyes on throughout the year.



The next 2 teams in the division, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers are gonna have to slug it out to see who won’t be sitting in last place come season end. My guess is the Panthers will finish ahead of the Bucs and here’s why.

Even though the Panthers have let go of long time QB Jake Delhomme to the Browns and Defensive End Julius Peppers to the Bears, I have a feeling they are in better shape than Buccaneers. None have a proven QB in Matt Moore and Josh Freeman but I see the upside in Moore. When Delhomme went down in Week 12 with a finger injury, Moore took his spot the next week in a division game against the Bucs. Well he showed up. Moore only misfired on 6 passes for 161 yards and 1 pick in a victory. Gotta give the edge to the Panthers on that one. Then against the Vikings in a December matchup, he had the game of his life, throwing for 299 yards and 3 td and no picks in an upset win. After this game Moore received praise from head coach John Fox and Pro Bowl WR Steve Smith who scored a touchdown in the game. Against the Giants and their pitiful defense Moore ripped them a new one, completing 15 of 20 pass attempts for a career-high passer rating 139.8. The Panthers are 4-1 when he’s a starter.



On to the woeful Buccaneers. When you start a season 0-7, I guess you can only look up right? Well the light for these guys is so for out of reach it’s a dot. They have 2 rookie quarterbacks in Josh Johnson and Josh Freeman. Have running back Derrick Ward who severely disappointed last year after career years with the Giants. A second year head coach in Raheem Morris, man I’d hate to have his job right now. And their best player on defense, Ronde Barber, isn’t getting any younger. They have one of the youngest teams in the league on both sides of the ball after releasing Derrick Brooks, Jeff Garcia, Ike Hilliard, and Cato June a year ago. Every team goes through rebuilding, so its going to be a learning curve for these youngsters. But what they should have is some type of veteran presence other than Barber in there so when they endure a tough loss they can have reassurance that it will in time get better.



Here are my predictions:

1)Saints 12-4

2)Falcons-10-6

3)Panthers 8-8

4)Buccaneers 2-14