The NFC South isn’t great, but it’s extremely compelling.
Never mind the matching 5-7 records. Never mind the equally shocking losing streaks. Never mind the fact the NFC South has been the laughingstock of the NFL for the majority of this 2014 NFL season.
After Week 13, the race for the NFC’s (presumably) fourth playoff seed is hot and heavy. It may rightly be thought of as a hot mess, but it is most definitely hot. It is wild. And it will be exhilarating over the final month of the 2014 season.
Both the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints got to five wins Sunday with impressive and status-altering demolitions of favored opponents—more on that momentarily.
Five weeks ago, Mike Smith’s job security was thinner than a corn tortilla. After an embarrassing loss in London to the Lions, which dropped the team to 2-6, pundits wondered if owner Arthur Blank would even allow Smith onto the team plane to fly home.
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A Bye Week followed, and since the Falcons are 3-1, coming off easily their most impressive victory on Sunday against the best team in the league record-wise going into Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals.
Using Pro-Football-Reference.com’s Win-Loss Expectancy model, the Falcons should 5.8-6.2, or 6-6. They have managed to nibble their point differential down to just minus-8, good for second best in the division. But statistically the Fightin’ Ryans are middle of the pack in most areas.
Through 12 games they are an average football team—as their expected win-loss record indicates. But they were significantly better than average in their whooping of the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon at the Georgia Dome.
Using the Win Calculator, the Falcons’ odds of winning never dropped below 50 percent after kickoff (they came in slightly under 50 percent), and by the start of the second quarter through to the end of the contest, hovered around 75 percent or better.
That’s pretty dominant. What’s most impressive, though, about that victory is the way Matt Ryan shredded one of the best passing defenses in the league. He was seven-for-seven on “deep” throws (15 yards or more) for 167 yards, or 23.9 yards per attempt.
Five of those successful throws went to Julio Jones, while the other two went to Harry Douglas—quietly one of the most valuable third Wide Receivers in the league today.
This video shows one of the successful deep throws. As former Falcon D.J. Shockley explains, Offensive Coordinator Dirk Koetter manages to create a one-on-one matchup between Julio Jones and Patrick Peterson, which on Sunday greatly favored the explosive Wide Receiver.
Matty Ice was incredibly efficient as a thrower while veteran Running Back Steven Jackson had by far his most productive outing of the season. As rushing gaps go, Jackson was especially successful rushing around right tackle, doing so three times for 62 yards.
But the defense performed as it should facing a backup Quarterback missing his greatest weapon, Larry Fitzgerald, giving up just one scoring drive in the first 57 & ½ minutes of the contest, which went for only three points, while nabbing three turnovers. In all, it was five forced punts, three turnovers, a field goal drive and a garbage time touchdown drive allowed for one of the most maligned defensive units in the league.
The challenge amps up in difficulty by about 1,000 times for that unit as it will face the hottest Quarterback in football in Aaron Rodgers (on Monday Night Football no less), who has not thrown an interception at Lambeau Field this season, and frankly has played about perfect football this season, no matter the location.
If we’re being honest, Atlanta probably has no chance to go into Lambeau and pull out a victory on Monday, unless they can duplicate their efforts from Sunday, when they were 7-of-16 on third downs, at the same time that Arizona was 1-of-7, and held the ball for about 37 minutes to just 23 for the Cardinals.
If they can do that, they could actually beat the Packers. Let’s assume they will not. In that case, the New Orleans Saints’ next two games are vitally important for Atlanta.
The Saints host Carolina this weekend, having already won convincingly against last year’s division winners the night before Halloween in Charlotte. Despite a befuddling three-game home losing streak, it is difficult to imagine the Saints faltering this time around.
The Saints, though, face a similar challenge to Atlanta the week after. They too must go to an NFC North opponent in the cold December temperatures, as they’ll head to Soldier Field to play the Bears. On paper, that game appears to be a rather even contest.
So let’s say the Saints and Falcons both go 1-1 in the next two contests. December 21 then sets up as the game for all the marbles. That is the day in which Atlanta will enter the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, hoping to essentially capture the division crown (Atlanta won the first matchup and would clinch the division title because of both head-to-head and divisional record).
But, if the Saints play the way they did at Pittsburgh, over the next two games, then the Falcons will go into the dome just hoping to stay in the divisional race.
As poorly as the Saints played in their three-game homestand filled with losing, they were that outstanding for most of Sunday’s road victory against the Steelers.
The running game got going again—Mark Ingram ran efficiently (23 times for 122 yards) while Pierre Thomas pitched in three important runs. In fact, the Saints played Steelers football against them, while forcing Pittsburgh to play throw-it-every down-ball.
The result, as has too often been the case in Saints losses during the Brees-Payton era, except this time in reverse, was Pittsburgh out-passing the passing gurus by more than 200 yards.
In other words, the Saints did what must be done to win games in December, January and possibly February: they ran the ball and played good defense. The 538 yards given up looks like a high number, but a large percentage of it came in what amounted to garbage time.
The three-point win really was never in question, as the Saints held a 35-16 with around 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, after the future Hall of Fame Quarterback hit Marques Colston on a three-yard touchdown pass.
Like their division rival, the Saints won the turnover battle by two and looked dominant against a team who came in considered a superior football team. Maybe Week 13 was an anomaly. Or maybe, just maybe these are the teams we really should have expected to see all along.
If you buy into the argument that says Point Differential is a great indicator of future success, as is the expected win-loss record—6.1-5.9 for New Orleans—these are two teams at least a little bit better than their current records indicate.
That should mean Weeks 14 through 17 provide as compelling a race for the division as exists in football. And for the first time all year, the NFC South might no longer be the laughingstock of the league, but praised for the quality of its top two teams.
8-8 may win the NFC South, but that team will be at least slightly better than their record, and will likely head into the postseason playing some really good football.