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Football
Forecastor
2009 NFC
South Preview and Projections
By Jim Campbell of
www.footballforecastor.com
NEW ORLEANS:
These Nawlin’ Saints have posted a combined regular season
win/loss mark of 36-44 straight up and 38-40-2 over the past five
seasons and during this span have only had one winning season which
was in 2006 when they posted a record of 10-6 and consequently not
only made the playoffs that year but also made it to the NFC
Championship game against Chicago which ended in a 39-14 defeat.
When the 2006 season came to a close, first year head coach Sean
Payton was voted Coach of the Year by the Associated Press.
Payton is in his
fourth season with the team after being hired away from the Cowboys,
one of the first things Payton did once arriving in Bayou Country
was to engineer the signing of QB Drew Brees, that decision has
proved to be a very shrewd move indeed as the Saints, with Brees
under center, owned the NFL’s top offense in 2006 and again in
2008 and was the leagues’ fourth best offense in 2007…not a bad
three year stretch.
The Saints major
malfunction is their defense which ranked 25th in the
league last year in terms of average points allowed per game (25.0),
ranked 27th in terms of points allowed (7.27) per 100 yds
gained, and ranked 21st in passing yards allowed per game
(220.2). New Orleans was middle of the road against the run in
ranking 16th in rushing yds allowed per game (110.1) and
ranked 17th in yards per pop allowed (4.10).
For the 2009 season
the Saints have hired highly respected Gregg Williams to be their
defensive guru, HC Sean Payton was heavily involved in the
recruiting effort and in the end took a voluntary $250,000 pay cut
in order to sweeten the pot. The addition of Gregg Williams to the
coaching staff along with the free agent signings of defensive backs
Darren Sharper, Pierson Prioleau, and Jabari Greer as well as the
drafting of defensive back Malcolm Jenkins out of Ohio State with
the NFL’s 14th overall pick, should indeed shore up the
Saints secondary and in the end allow their defensive line to get
some coverage sacks.
I believe New Orleans
is ready to make their move this season, however, Nawlins’ must
contend with the NFL’s 7th toughest schedule as their
2009 slate of opponents had a combined win/loss percentage of .557
last year. The Saints are fortunate in that their hardest out of
division games will take place in their home dome as they will host
the Giants, New England, and Dallas while their toughest out of
division road affairs take place at Philly, at Miami, and at Wash.
Look for the Saints to win the NFC South and punch their ticket to
the playoffs. Projected record 10-6.
***Look to play AGAINST
New Orleans on December 13th when they travel to the
Georgia Dome to face the Atlanta Falcons, the schedule maker was not
kind to the Saints in this matchup as New Orleans will be playing on
the road for the second straight week and will also be playing their
fourth road game in a five week span with a home MNF affair against
New England sandwiched in between. Nawlins’ will be one tired and
road weary bunch that’s for sure, meanwhile, the Falcons will be
well rested as they will be playing their third consecutive home
game.
CAROLINA:
I view these Panthers in almost the same light as the Miami Dolphins
in that both teams failed to make the playoffs in 2006 and 2007, yet
seemingly rose from the ashes to win their respective divisions in
2008, however, both teams did so on the basis of having a rather
easy 2008 schedule.
That will not be the
case for the 2009 season as the Miami Dolphins drew the toughest
schedule of any NFL team for the upcoming season as their slate of
opponents posted a combined win/loss percentage of .594%, and right
behind Miami sits these Panthers who will face the NFL’s second
toughest schedule in the league this year as their opponents posted
a combined win/loss percentage of .592%. To make matters worse for
Carolina, they will play seven games this season against teams that
were in the 2008 playoffs.
The strength of this
Carolina team is their power running game which allowed them to
finish the 2008 season ranked 4th in the league in
rushing yards per game (147.0) and also finish 4th in
rushing yards per pop with a 4.77 average, however, something has to
give in Carolina as they finished 30th in the NFL in pass
completions per game (15.5) and 21st in the league in
passing yards per game (194.0). I say something has to give because
those passing numbers aren’t going to cut the mustard in 2009
against the better defenses that these Panthers will face.
As already mentioned,
these Panthers will indeed stay true to their power running
philosophy with RB’s DeAngelo Williams and Jonathon Stewart who
combined for over 2300 rushing yards and 28 rushing TD’s in 2008,
however, they will need more production out of QB Jake Delhomme this
season in terms of points scored and ball control if the Carolina
offense is to make up for the shortcomings of the Panther defense
which ranked 22nd in rushing yards allowed which was an
un-Panther-like 124.1 yards per game on average as well as a 23rd
ranking in yards allowed per rush (4.42). Projected record 9-7.
***Look to play AGAINST
Carolina in their season opening home game against the visiting
Eagles, the Panthers have traditionally been a strong home team and
the public knows this which in turn should keep the point spread on
this game to a manageable number which I would expect to be
somewhere between a pk’em to -2 in either teams favor depending on
what happens between now and the start of the regular season with
regard to injuries.
The Eagles own a
defense that ranked 6th in rushing yards allowed per game
(92.6) and 4th in yards allowed per tote (3.46) in 2008,
the Eagles defense also ranked 2nd in the league in
passing yards allowed per game (180.1) and ranked 4th in
yards allowed per catch (5.58), meaning of course that the Panther
offense will be hard pressed in moving the ball. On the flip side of
things Philly should move the ball with relative ease against
Carolina and in the end win by 6 or 7 points.
ATLANTA:
These Falcons are almost a carbon copy of the Carolina Panthers with
regard to what they like to do and how they like to do it.
Offensively Atlanta is a power rushing team that ranked 5th
in the league last year in rushing yards per game (145.3) but ranked
25th in pass completions per game (17.0) which clearly
shows that the Falcons prefer to play a ball control type of offense
that is built around a running game.
This is a good
philosophy that has worked for many Super Bowl winners in the past,
however, when opposing teams shut down your running game you better
have the ability to toss the rock with success and you had better be
able to play some defense yourself. The Problem I see with Atlanta
is that they posted a mark of 11-5 straight up last year but did so
against rather weak competition, a review of their results shows
that four of their eleven wins were by 4 points or less.
Atlanta played over
their heads last year and surprised some teams with the play of
rookie QB Matt Ryan, however, Ryan isn’t a rookie this year and
each team on Atlanta’s schedule now has plenty of film on Ryan to
watch for tendencies. Defensively these Falcons were not able to
stop the opposing team from running the ball in 2008 as evidenced by
ranking 21st in the NFL against the rush in allowing
122.0 yards per game and ranking a rather shoddy 30th in
rushing yards allowed per pop (4.84).
Like the rest of the
NFC South, these Falcons will be force fed a schedule that is
amongst the NFL’s toughest for the 2009 season, in Atlanta’s
case they will face a slate of opponents this year that had a
combined win/loss percentage of .588 which ranks as the fourth
toughest schedule in the league. Add to the mix that Atlanta has
tough out of division contests against the likes of New England,
Dallas, the Giants, and the Jets on the road as well as home games
against Miami, Washington, and Philadelphia and me thinks there is
no way Atlanta matches their 11-5 record from a year ago. Projected
record 8-8.
***Look to play AGAINST
Atlanta on November 22nd when they visit the New York
Giants, the Falcons will be playing their second straight road game
and will be ending a stretch that has them playing 5 road games in a
7 week span including a trip to the left coast to San Francisco and
a MNF affair at New Orleans….can you say "Road Weary"?
The Falcons could
very well be installed as huge doggies in this game of +7 or more
but I am not worried as a simple review of last season shows that
Atlanta posted a mark of 0-3 straight up and ATS in this situation
and as an added plus a glance at the Giants schedule reveals that
they will enter this contest rested and refreshed as they are coming
off their bye week.
TAMPA BAY:
For the cost of $8 million, two first round draft picks and two
second round draft picks, Jon "Chuckie" Gruden was traded
in 2002 to Tampa Bay from the Oakland Raiders, as fate would have it
both Tampa and Oakland made it to the Super Bowl in that same season
with Tampa Bay winning the Lombardi trophy by a final of 48-21 as a
four point doggie.
In the six years
following that Super Bowl win over Oakland, Chuckie posted a
combined regular season win/loss mark of 55-41 straight up and only
made the playoffs twice (2005 and 2007), losing both times as a wild
card. Needless to say, high expectations following that Super Bowl
win is what got Gruden fired as Tampa Bay’s skipper. In truth the
deal which brought Gruden to Tampa to begin with, is what proved to
be his undoing, as the Bucs were an aged team when Gruden took over
and the loss of those four high round drafts picks proved to be too
costly as Tampa was not able to restock with fresh high level
talent.
The Tampa Bay
Buccaneer brass must know something we don’t know that’s for
sure with regard to placing their teams’ future in the hands of a
guy (Raheem Morris) that has never held a head coaching position at
any competitive level and has never advanced past the position of a
defensive backs coach in the NFL. This is going to be a very
interesting year for the Buccaneer faithful indeed with regard to
having a new head coach that has virtually no NFL coaching
experience who will turn 33 years young on September 3, 2009 while
also having a new 63 year old defensive coordinator (Jim Bates) with
37 years of coaching experience.
Yup, Tampa’s new
defensive coordinator has been coaching football for 4 years longer
than the Bucs new HC has been breathing air, the Buc’s also have a
new offensive coordinator (Jeff Jagodzinski) that has 24 years of
total coaching experience in the College and Professional ranks
including six years of NFL coaching experience and was a very
successful head coach at Boston College but was fired for
interviewing for the vacant New York Jets head coaching job. Yup, it’s
certainly going to be quite interesting to see if young Raheem
Morris listens to his more experienced assistants or not and also
whether the new assistants give as much help as they are capable of
as each of them surely must covet the head coaching job should
Morris get kicked to the curb after this season.
It’s obvious that
the Tampa Bay brass wants to see new skipper Raheem Morris succeed
as demonstrated by the experienced coordinators they brought in to
help him, however, the Bucs’ didn’t fare so well in this past
Aprils draft and the loss of eight starters from last years’ squad
coupled with facing the NFL’s third toughest schedule this year in
terms of facing teams that had a combined winning percentage of .580
will be too much to overcome and especially so when considering that
three of their first five games to open the season are on the road
and they will close out the regular season with four of their final
six games away from home, and oh by the way…these Bucs will only
have seven home games this season as they will be facing the
Patriots in a game to be played in London England on October 25th
and it counts as a home game for Tampa Bay. Projected record
5-11.
***Look to play AGAINST
the Tampa Bay Bucs on September 13th in their season opening home
game versus the visiting Dallas Cowboys, as mentioned in the above
written preview of Tampa, the Bucs had a very poor draft, have an
entirely new coaching staff that is teaching new schemes, and lost a
ton of veteran leadership on both sides of the ball with the release
of Derrick Brooks, Cato June, Warwick Dunn, Joey Galloway, and Ike
Hilliard.
Meanwhile, Dallas
finally cut their ties with trouble-makers Terrell Owens, Tank
Johnson, and Adam "Pacman" Jones and will come to town
wanting to start the season off with a bang after a disappointing
2008 campaign that ended with losses in three of their final four
games of the season and left them with a mark of 9-7 straight up and
7-9 ATS.
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