Which Bad Team Emerges to Win NFC South? Outlining Which Team Might Have Inside Track

The NFC South is seen by most as the worst division in the NFL, and it’s a well-earned distinction. Since the NFL went to a 17-game schedule in 2021, only twice has a team won a division title with a losing record, and both came from the NFC South: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2022 (8-9) and the Carolina Panthers in 2025 (8-9), who both lost at home in the wild-card round. The division hasn’t done much to change that perception this year. Carolina is atop the division with a 3-3 record, which would have it alone in last place in the NFC North or AFC North. The NFC South is hardly the only bad division in the NFL. The AFC South, despite having the 4-2 Jacksonville Jaguars, has fewer total wins than the NFC South, and by point differential, the NFC East is somehow 47 points worse. The fact remains that some team will win the division, and that’s not an easy call to make. Three days ago, the Bucs had the worst record in the NFC at 1-5. Now, they’re 1.5 games out of first with a tiebreaker edge on the Panthers after a surprising 43-13 win in Charlotte. If the Panthers lose at the Packers on Thursday night, you could argue that the winner of Sunday’s Atlanta Falcons-Buccaneers game in Tampa might become the team to beat in the division. Both Atlanta and Tampa Bay have played with backup quarterbacks, with the Falcons opening 0-2 with Cooper Rush starting and the Buccaneers going 1-2 with undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels stepping in when Baker Mayfield injured his thumb. Michael Penix Jr. has thrown three touchdown passes in each of the last two games, and the Bucs rushed for 258 yards in routing the Panthers, so there’s momentum on both sides. Sunday’s Falcons-Buccaneers game has both teams’ strengths going directly against each other, too. Atlanta ranks sixth in rushing yards per game and fourth in rushing yards allowed; Tampa Bay ranks third and second in the same categories. So will the Falcons’ Bijan Robinson take control of the game, or the Bucs’ Bucky Irving? To add to the fun, Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator, Zac Robinson, had the same job with the Falcons the last two years, and back in January, Mayfield took a shot at new Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski, upset that he didn’t hear from his old coach when the Browns traded him to Carolina in 2022. “Still waiting on a text/call from him after I got shipped off like a piece of garbage,” Mayfield wrote over the offseason. “Can’t wait to see you twice a year, Coach.” For a division that’s close in the standings — it could be a single game separating top and bottom by Sunday night — the three division games haven’t been close at all. The Bucs won by 30 against the Panthers, who beat the Falcons (with Rush at QB) by 31, and the Falcons beat the Saints by 21. New Orleans has lost four of five entering its Week 8 bye, but the Saints also have more time to right the ship, with four division games in the final five weeks of the season. The Bucs are the only NFC South team that has outscored their opponents over the entire season, as they’re only the third team in the last 15 years to be 2-5 and have a positive point differential. And it’s a wild precedent, but the other two teams to do so — the 2018 Indianapolis Colts and the 2022 Jacksonville Jaguars — not only made the playoffs from a 2-5 start, but also each won a playoff game. Tampa Bay has the best defense in the division right now, ranking third in yards allowed, well ahead of Atlanta (19), Carolina (22) and New Orleans (28). The Bucs have 10 sacks in the last two games, so if Mayfield’s healthy return can spark the offense, the other side of the ball is doing enough to win games. Division games will likely decide this year’s NFC South champ, but it’s also fair to look at remaining strength of schedule. The Bucs are 0-5 against teams currently with a winning record, but they also have the fewest games remaining against such opponents. They have only three games against teams with records better than .500, fewer than the Saints (4), Falcons (5) and especially the Panthers (7). Carolina’s non-division opponents are a combined 32-15 this season, while the five teams Tampa Bay has lost to are a combined 24-9 right now. We saw this coming before the season, but with news that the Las Vegas Raiders will stick with Kirk Cousins for now and keep Fernando Mendoza on the bench despite four straight losses, it continues to be a remarkably quiet season for rookie quarterbacks. Seven weeks in, rookie quarterbacks have combined for just four touchdown passes (and three were from Buccaneers QB Jalon Daniels) and that’s the lowest in any season since 2007, when there was one at this point. There were at least 20 touchdown passes thrown by rookie quarterbacks in eight of nine seasons between 2016-24, then just 14 last year, now four. The rookie we might see starting next? Arizona Cardinals rookie Carson Beck, a third-round pick out of Miami (Fla.) who has yet to take a snap, is waiting behind veteran starter Jacoby Brissett. Brissett isn’t the reason the Cardinals have lost five of six, as they have the NFL’s worst defense, giving up a league-high 29.7 points per game. But that means they’re constantly trailing and Brissett has thrown an NFL-high 282 passes. There isn’t an easy spot to pivot to either rookie, though. Las Vegas’ bye isn’t until Week 13, and Arizona’s is Week 14, and coaches don’t want to have a quarterback’s first NFL experience be a run of crushing defeats. If there’s a market for a veteran passer at the trade deadline, Cousins and Brissett would be natural targets, so that could create an opening to put rookies on the field as well. It’s that time of the season where a coach’s patience with a struggling kicker runs out. We’ve already seen the Los Angeles Rams move on from Harrison Mevis, and three other NFL kickers have already missed five field goals this season. The biggest name is the Kansas City Chiefs’ Harrison Butker, who has never missed more than six field goals in a season, but is 11-for-16 after two more misses in Sunday’s loss to Seattle. He hasn’t made a field goal longer than 50 yards and is 2-for-6 on 50+ kicks, after being a 66 percent kicker on 50+ entering this season. “He’s been one of the most consistent kickers in football,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said after the game. “He’s off a bit, so got to fix it.” Two kickers who have earned much less leeway are rookies: Green Bay Packers kicker Trey Smack, who is 11-for-16 like Butker, and New York Giants kicker Dominic Zvada, who is 13-for-18. Smack, a sixth-round pick, has missed four field goals in the last three weeks, including two in a three-point loss to the Lions on Sunday. Zvada, an undrafted rookie, has all five misses in the last three weeks, split between two games close enough that they went to overtime. Cutting a kicker can be expensive. San Francisco 49ers kicker Eddy Piñeiro has missed seven total kicks this year, including an extra point Sunday that meant San Francisco was down two scores late in a 29-20 loss to the Falcons. However, the 49ers signed Piñeiro to a contract this year that includes $8 million guaranteed over the next two years, so it’s not as simple a financial decision as most kicker cuts are. And what if you can’t even get your offense into field-goal range? Philadelphia Eagles kicker Jake Elliott has five field-goal attempts in seven games, putting him on pace for 12 over a full season — seven fewer than his career low in his 10-year career. It’d be fine if he were busy with extra points, but Philadelphia is 29th in scoring.