nfc-south Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
NFC South: Where Everyone’s Bad, But Someone’s Gotta Be First
A chaotic NFC South race heats up as the Falcons, Bucs, Saints, and Panthers battle for playoff hopes. Who will rise from the mediocrity to claim the division crown?...

The NFL's best free agent signings of 2023
The 2024 NFL league year is around the corner. That gives us one full year’s sample size to judge last year’s free agent class. Among all the teams who spent big in free agency last season, whose money made the most for them? These 2023 free agents were hugely important to their teams’ success and a...

The most realistic (and logical) option for the Buccaneers now is Baker Mayfield
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have decided to keep wide receiver Mike Evans in the fold for a couple more years, announcing an agreement on an extension Monday. Now Baker Mayfield is sitting around waiting for that same call or text from his agent with the same news Evans received. It only makes sense af...

The Buccaneers finally came to their senses with Mike Evans
Mike Evans is a Hall of Fame talent. His 1,255 receiving yards last season makes him the only player in NFL history to record 1,000 receiving yards in each of his first 10 NFL seasons. Regardless of whether the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is Tom Brady, Jameis Winston, Baker May...

Ask not what a free agent running back can do for you, but what you can do for them
Saying there’s no value in running backs was always nonsense, but because bad teams think a ground game is going to make their garbage quarterback and shoddy offensive line redeemable, the stereotype gets furthered. So this offseason when some NFC South team signs Derrick Henry or Josh Jacobs or Saq...

Best landing spots for WR Mike Evans
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and wide receiver Mike Evans were unable to come to an agreement on a contract extension, meaning that the five-time Pro Bowler is set to hit free agency. Evans is a model of consistency, having never finished a season with fewer than 1,000 receiving yards. His 10 consecutiv...

Ranking the new NFL head coaching hires
With the Washington Commanders hiring Dan Quinn, the NFL’s head coaching cycle has officially concluded. Barring any unforeseen firings, eight coaches have new jobs, and none of them are Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll, or Mike Vrabel. With the dust finally settled, it’s time to see how each team fared...

Bill Belichick could sure use Tom Brady’s advice finding a final stop
The path back to winning for Bill Belichick is as easy as parroting Tom Brady’s search for a contending roster following his departure from the New England Patriots. Like Brady at 42, the 71-year-old Belichick doesn’t have too many of his best years left either, which is why the QB targeted Tampa Ba...

Bill Belichick in Atlanta would be absolutely marvelous
Bless the Atlanta Falcons’ heart: They are shooting their shot. There are reports from national and local Atlanta insiders that the Dirty Birds want Bill Belichick to be their next head coach. On Wednesday, ESPN’s Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler reported that the Falcons have a strong interest in Bel...

These are the biggest flops of the 2023 NFL season
The NFL is a small-sample league. Before you can even blink, 18 games have flown by and we’re left trying to make sense of everything that happened. It means that luck can play a massive part in whether a team succeeds or fails, with a few bounces of the ball defining the entire story for an entire ...

The NFL’s Black coaches are turning Wild-Card Weekend into a diversity showcase
There’s one storyline the NFL hasn’t highlighted heading into the postseason, and that’s probably for legal reasons. At least, I can’t imagine the league’s attorneys would advise them to showcase its entire roster of Black head coaches making the playoffs, considering Brian Flores’ lawsuit is still ...

Every team in the NFL playoffs, ranked
The NFL playoffs are officially set. All the ups and downs, laughs and years, improbable comebacks and unprecedented collapses, none of those mean anything now. All that’s left is a four-week sprint to immortality. ...

From Jerry Richardson to Dave Tepper, the Carolina Panthers have written the manual on trash owners
Three million dollars (total) in fines. Two atrocious owners. One franchise. The Carolina Panthers are a mess....

The wacky ways these NFL teams can make — or miss — the playoffs
As the NFL heads into the final week of the regular season, there are still division titles and playoff berths to be decided....

Aaron Rodgers and the biggest transactions of the 2023 NFL season
With just a handful of weeks left before the end of the NFL regular season, it’s time to evaluate the moves that defined the year in review. Everyone makes big deals about offseason moves and trades, but only in hindsight can we truly find the moves that defined the year. ...

Lamar Jackson might win MVP, yet no other teams wanted him during the offseason?
It was about nine months ago when Lamar Jackson wanted to be traded from the Baltimore Ravens. The best quarterback in the history of two forever-linked franchises — the Ravens and the Cleveland Browns — was on the open market. Jackson is the only player besides Aaron Rodgers and Patrick Mahomes to ...

The Falcons are still in the playoff hunt despite another bad loss
The Atlanta Falcons remaining in the thick of the NFC South picture has to be a source of torment for the team’s fans. Two weeks ago they were 6-6 and alone atop the division. Following an ugly 9-7 loss to the formerly 1-12 Carolina Panthers, Atlanta is now 6-8 and a full game behind the New Orleans...

Here's every NFL quarterback to start a game so far this season
Update: It’s the final week of the NFL regular season and even more backups will get starts as teams who’ve locked up playoff spots rest their normal QB1s....

Firing Frank Reich isn't going to fix the Carolina Panthers
In 1995, the Carolina Panthers had the best season of any expansion franchise in the history of the NFL. They went 7-9 during a year in which they did not have a home stadium, and played those eight games at Clemson. The next season they went 12-4 and played in the NFC Championship Game, and the 200...

The Carolina Panthers have a Dave Tepper problem
In May of 2018, at the Whitley Hotel in Atlanta — known then as the Ritz-Carlton (Buckhead) — Dave Tepper played one of the greatest games of “Big Bank Take Little Bank” of all time. He bought the Carolina Panthers for a then-record $2.275 billion…in CASH....