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NFC South Still A One Team Race For First Place
In what has become the exception in the NFL, the NFC South will be won by the team with the best quarterback. Can anyone catch the Buccaneers?
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As NFL minicamps get under way and the preseason inches closer, there are tons of stories around the league to monitor. From position battles to new coaching regimes to rookies in important spots, a laundry list of questions will find data in these next couple months before Week 1. They all will go toward answering the ultimate, overarching question: who is going to win.
To preview the 2026 season, we are going to go division-by-division and answering just one question about how that division is going to shake out. Next up is the NFC South. The question is: Who is going to finish in first place?
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For years now, the NFC South has been the butt of jokes. Secretly, though, the entire division was pretty competent in 2025. None were great teams, and we don’t expect any to be this year either, but none of the four was an embarrassment. It’s a low bar, but the bar was cleared!
How do we see the top of the division unfolding this season with no pushovers but no clear elite team? The NFC South is becoming the exception, because the team with the best QB will win.
NFC South Battle for 1st
Todd Salem: Buccaneers Can’t Be Caught
Let’s start on the defensive side of the ball. We could see good defensive units out of anywhere from zero to three of these squads. (Probably not Atlanta) New Orleans will be relying on its vets up front; Carolina will need injury luck from the likes of Jaelan Phillips and Jaycee Horn; Tampa Bay has turned over a new leaf, moving away from the old guard, as Lavonte David has (presumably) retired. And then there’s Atlanta: perennially looking for pass rushing. I could squint and imagine any of the first three having good defensive seasons. Carolina is probably the best bet because the talent is there, if people stay healthy.
Offense is…another matter. The NFC South is the worst collection of quarterbacks in the league. We know that QB play no longer rules everything, but BAD QB play certainly means a team is doomed.
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Baker Mayfield is clearly the best of the bunch, and he is a mid-tier QB league-wide. I like Mayfield more than some, which may be a spoiler for the end of this. I also seem to like the other QBs here less than many analysts. Bryce Young and Tua Tagovailoa are replacement-level passers and should be backups if the team was better. If Michael Penix is healthy, I’m not ready to write off his career completely, but he has yet to show he’s a starter in this league either. Tyler Shough is a second-year passer who showed minuscule glimpses of great play last year. If he takes a leap, he could become a good player, but anointing him as that already is foolish. If grading the QBs in the order I listed, I would go B, D, D, C/incomplete.
What about supporting casts? Okay, now we’re talking! Bucky Irving, Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin Jr., Chuba Hubbard, Tetairoa McMillan, Bijan Robinson, Drake London, Kyle Pitts Sr., Travis Etienne Jr., Alvin Kamara, Chris Olave. These are some great names. The depth is not always there, especially for Carolina, but the high-end talent is. And the South should home some pretty great offensive lines as well, led by the Panthers and Buccaneers.
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On the coaching front, I’m king of intrigued. I’ve liked what I’ve seen out of the young Dave Canales and Kellen Moore but need to see a larger sample size. I am a big Kevin Stefanski guy, though I wish he had a defense here in Atlanta approaching some of his best Cleveland units. Todd Bowles is the opposite. He can coach up a defense but needs an offense to work on its own essentially.
And guess what Bowles happens to have at his disposal? The best quarterback in the division! Mayfield on his own is obviously not consistent enough to just win a division outright, but paired with Bowles’ defensive acumen, the great offensive line in front of him, and a pretty good group of skill players, Tampa Bay feels like the correct answer. The Bucs will finish first.
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Dan Salem: Mayfield For The Win
I keep waiting for Atlanta or Carolina to make ‘the leap’ ahead of Tampa Bay, but I’m fairly confident I will continue to wait this year as well. New Orleans is the NFC South team that consistently surprises us and often surpasses expectations much sooner than expected. Pun intended. But even if the Saints are significantly improved this year, it’s hard to imagine them as a playoff caliber team just yet. So the only question worth asking is simple: Will anyone catch the Buccaneers?
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People keep selling Baker Mayfield short and as luck would have it, the Bucs are currently offering him the short end of the new contract stick, or at least less money than he believes he deserves. Mayfield is the perfect quarterback for Tampa Bay. If the Bucs had a slightly better head coach, they would be right there with the Seahawks. As it stands, Bowles is above average and so are his Buccaneers. I expect them to win the NFC South with a record that is just above average.
If no one is going to catch Tampa Bay, then what do we make of the remainder of the South division? For at least one more season, everyone else in the division will be improving and considered up and coming. Carolina is on its last legs because nothing has truly come together for the Panthers. New Orleans is trending in the right direction, but I need to see more from its offense this year to become a believer. Atlanta keeps muddling in the middle and I expect that trend to continue.
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What we have are four teams that will all look good in September, but only one that will keep playing well through October and November. With so many very good teams in the NFC West, NFC North and potentially even in the NFC East, this division is the one that falls behind. It’s the Bucs’ division title to lose, so long as Mayfield plays consistently above average at QB, which is what he’s always done. In the NFC South, the best QB determines the winner. Is this now the rare exception?
Meet our Sports Writers:
Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.
Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.
NFC South Preview – This Is The End
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