If you want an exact answer I think the Panthers will win the NFC South and I think the Panthers will go 8-9. I think the NFC South looks something like this:

Carolina 8-9
Atlanta 7-10
New Orleans 7-10
Tampa Bay 6-11

There is a lot of parity so reasonably any of those teams could get +/- 2 or 3 wins and its anyone's game, and probably someone gets 9, but thats my prediction if you want an actual answer.

Carolina beat us twice this year, and separately the player who is now their backup QB won a 24-0 shutout win over the player who is now our starting QB. Our upgrade at QB was acquiring a QB we shut out with Lattimore inactive. Theirs was acquiring the #1 overall pick and getting our starter to back him up.

OK. What are the Saints 10 losses? For each of those losses, what do you see on the other team that makes you think that the Saints are going to lose?

Be an analyst, not just a pessimist. You can't just simply gauge this upcoming season on what happened last year. You can't project there being 4 QBs on the field, the #1 CB out for 10 weeks again, and MT13 lasting only a couple of weeks. What exactly do you project with the 90 man roster we have today that points to 10 losses?

Now shutting out Carr is true. However, Carr is on a new team with completely different scheme and weapons. And both the 24-0 shutout and the 13-0 loss are both testament to the fact that even injured, our defense can put it on people.

Little in the NFL projects from year to year. If that were the case then there would be no playoff team turnover year to year no would there be any worst to first stories. But both happen in the NFL with astonishing consistency.

Here are my projections:

Division 5-1: Sweep the falcaints and yuccs, split with the kitties. Raw QBs on each team will succumb to the defense while our offense delivers consistent points under Carr.
NFC North 2-2: Love is raw. Fields is dynamic. Lions are a tough out. Finally put Minnesota down
AFC South 3-1. Jacksonville has it together. The other 3 are trying to get it together.
Equal positions 1-1 (maybe 2-0): Giants will be tough. Rams not so much
Patriots 1-0: Mac Jones. Enough said.

12-5 division champs, #2 seed.

I just don't think you give this defense enough credit. And they have a fairly long history of defending tough. It's not something they will have to learn.

SFIAH


SFIAH

Division 3-3: Lose twice to Carolina like last year, 1-1 with Atlanta which is a younger team and took our defensive coordinator and several of our young free agents, 2-0 over the Bucs.

NFC North 1-3: Vikings and Lions were winning teams last year. They have established QBs. We did not beat those kind of teams last year. Bears and Packers have young hungry mobile QBs but have many other problems so I say we split those two games one way or another.

AFC South 2-2: Jacksonville beats us with an established QB and young team. The other 3 teams are trying to get it together, but like so are we, and two of them got high picks and selected a QB who may run all over us. We got a high pick and gave it to the Eagles for an injured oline. So honestly even going 2-1 against the group of Indy, Hou, and Titans is optimistic.

Equal positions 1-1 (maybe 2-0): Giants will be tough. Rams not so much. Agree with your here except I would say just as likely to go 0-2 as 2-0. If Michael Thomas and Andrus Peat are healthy, maybe Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp are healthy???

Patriots: 0-1. Bill Belichick vs Dennis Allen. Enough said.

Factor into all of this, the refs still hate us and will screw us. In their view the no call was the worst call by a fan base in NFL history to dare call them out in such a situation where the replays were so unfair to the challenges of their job in real time. They feel they are the victims of the no call 1000x more than we do and they have actual power to continue exacting revenge if our team shows signs of life.

And thats a reasonable scenario for 7-10.

I absolutely can project MT13 only lasting a couple weeks. If you want to lose your fantasy league, project him playing all year. I also know the end is coming for Lattimore at some point and it could be soon. Lattimore is entering his 7th season. Asomugha's last pro bowl season was his 8th. Revis' was his 9th. But sometimes those are won on name. When those guys declined they declined fast. Richard Sherman played more than 9 games only 2 of 5 years after his 6th season. Lattimore faces two challenges going forward: staying on the field and remaining effective. Probably Lattimore plays more than 7 games but also he could easily lose a step and miss some games still. And at the same time, Jordan, Davis, and Mathieu are a year older. And we gave our DC to a division rival to reward last years strong defense. So I can project our defense being less good than 2022.