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NFC South Division Comparison
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20-02-2014 12:22am#1Following on from Heli's look at his AFC South division, I thought I'd compile one for the NFC South division.
Buccaneers are on their bye this week and the Falcons play the Lions, but as of right now the standings look like the below:
With the Saints on their bye week next week the Buccaneers can ensure that there's 3 games between the top of the division going into week 11 with a win in week 10. These two sides also meet in the final game of the regular season which could be huge if the Saints start to slip up. With 7 human games in a row to come, that's very possible. It's far from over yet.
Falcons and Panthers are now planning for an assault on the division in our final season.
Passing:
Josh Freeman and Matt Ryan are both very, very close in the passing category with only 42 yards splitting the pair. They rank 2nd and 3rd in the whole NFL in terms of passing yards, with 2,462 and 2,420 respectively.
Tyler Bray ranks 11th in the league with 1,932 and Andrew Luck 16th with 1,818 including the yards he racked up with the Colts prior to his mid-season trade.
Rushing:
The Saints have two players in Sproles (835 yards, 121 attempts, 6.9 YPC, 10 TD's) and Turner (534 yards, 85 attempts, 6.3 YPC, 5 TD's) leading the NFC South rushing, while Sproles remains 5th in the league overall despite missing 3 weeks so far.
Doug Martin is the next best in the division with 515 yards off 111 carries for 4.6 YPC and 12 TD's, while it is clear that the Falcons put a lot of emphasis on the passing game as their first choice RB Bennett has only 69 attempts, for 248 yards (3.6 YPC and 4 TD's).
Receiving:
TE's are the order of the day for the NFC South teams, as Reed Curtis, Josh McEvoy and Greg Olsen are the top three receivers in the division.
Rookie TE Reed Curtis has a whopping 64 receptions (second only to Demaryius Thomas in the whole NFL) with their next best receiver being TE Luke Stocker (26 receptions), highlighting the importance that the Buccaneers place on throwing to the TE. The Buccs also like to get the ball in the hands of the HB as Doug Martin has 28 receptions, which is 5th overall among running backs.
The Falcons have a nice mix going on the offensive end as after McEvoy (49 receptions for 799 yards), Julio Jones has 26 for 518 yards, Roddy White 23 for 398 and Brandon Lloyd 20 for 271.
One will not be surprised to see that Jimmy Graham is the leading receiver for the Saints with 438 yards off 23 catches, although Tyler Bray is mixing things up on the offensive side of the ball a lot more than Drew Brees ever did, with rookie wideout Mason Teller (25 receptions for 324 yards) also contributing significantly and Marques Colston lagging not too far behind.
Defense:
The Saints boast the 6th best run D in the league but the 21st ranked pass defense. However, they have allowed the third lowest amount of points in the league this season with 151 through 9 games. They also rank top 5 for sacks, top 3 for forced fumbles and 13th for interceptions, indicating that they get their fair share of turnovers, given those points allowed statistics it seems most of them come at critical points of the game.
The Falcons are a strange one. Their pass defense is absolutely impeccable, in fact it's virtually the joint best in the whole NFL alongside the Bears, However, the run defense is like a sieve and is the worst among human teams. If the Falcons could even get a top 15-20 run defense they would be a scary prospect for offenses. They rank 18th in sacks, joint 31st in fumbles and 32nd in interceptions, indicating that while their pass defense is immense, turnovers (or lack of) are still a huge problem. I'd imagine Gatsby is already scouting ball hawks!
The Buccaneers rank 8th in pass defense and 23rd in run defense, giving them just about a top 10 defense based on total yards allowed. They rank joint 31st in forced fumbles, 14th in interceptions and joint 29th in sacks. Turnovers through the air aren't a problem for this defense, but giving opposition QB's a tougher time would improve it further.
In terms of individual players, Luke Keuchly is the leading NFC South tackler (44) with Curtis Lofton a couple behind.
Junior Galette ranks joint 4th in the league for sacks with 7, while Gerald McCoy and Parys Haralson have 4.
Gerald McCoy is also joint 4th in the league for tackles for a loss with 11, while Junior Galette is following closely behind on 10. Parys Haralson has 6, while Maston Foster and Jabari Greer have 4 a piece.
No surprise to see Darrelle Revis near the top of the interceptions category. He has 4 (the league leader is Finnegan and Porter on 6). Second year free safety Kenny Vaccaro has 4 too, Curtis Lofton and Jabari Greer have 3, as does the Panthers Nnamdi Asomugha. The Falcons sole representative is Desmond Trufant with 1.
Dashon Goldson and Jabari Greer have forced 2 fumbles each, the second highest total in the league.
Special Teams:
Nick Novak has a 100% accuracy rating for the Panthers, kicking 11 from 11 and a long of 53 yards. Garrett Hartley is next up with a 94% rating kicking 17 from 18 and a long of 51 yards. Connor Barth is tied with Novak for the longest kick in the NFC South at 53 yards, and has a 75% rating with 6 kicks from 8. Matt Bryant's long is 47 and he has a 66% rating from 4 of 6 kicks.
Michael Koenen has the highest amount of punt yards, almost 300 more than the next highest, but has kicked a lot more than others with 21 attempts. The Falcons, Panthers and Saints have kicked 14, 14 and 13 times respectively. Koenen and Morstead have kicked 3 inside the 20, while Morstead has just about the net highest yards with 42.8 compared to Koenen's 42.3.
Overall:
The Saints have a big advantage with the 3 game lead but with so many human games left to be played it's far from over, especially with that final game of the regular season left on the schedule.
In the division you'll find lots of high-octane offense, with the Falcons favouring the pass, the Buccs leaning towards the pass and the Saints favouring the run. There's some very capable defense on display, but between all the teams it tends to either be heavily weighted towards the run (Saints) or pass (Falcons and Buccaneers).
Overall it's a very enjoyable division to play in with each player a similar standard and all capable of beating each other on any given day.3
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