The Dude

Yes I do believe our defense will be much better. I have no reason to think our offense won't be top 5 again. We made changes on coaching staff, player personnel, and other areas. No reason we can't be a better team.
Problem is every team has made changes to achieve the same goal.

Carolina has our number no matter what. Cam is hard to contain and has more weapons than ever. Their defense though which is usually top notch may have taken a step back. Interesting to see how they approach the game if they don't have that tough defense to fall back on.

Tampa is always supposed to surprise and hasnt really lived up to the media hype. They do have a hell of an offense on paper though. Is this Winstons break out year? Can their D keep them in the field?

Atlanta is tough and may have the most balanced team overall. Ryan is getting better and they have weapons to be a high scoring offense. We have owned them in the Payton era but have had a solid couple years against us. Their defense is improved. May be best in division which scares me. They are also coming off a Super Bowl year. Will that humiliating loss carry over to this year or will they have a huge chip on their shoulder as motivation.

Division will be tough this year. May take 10 or more games to win it.
When Brady went down they had 11-5 record and still missed playoffs if I remember correctly.

Our toughest will be Atlanta imo. The first game against the Vikings is as a must win of a game as we can have. Winning it and coming out of the gate knowing we won't be looking at 0-4 yet again would be huge for team moral and get us that winning mindset for when we have our first division game. Lose it and the memories of the last 3 seasons will be hard to get out of their heads.
So, whose our toughest?

Hell even winning a couple preseason games could go a long way.

"Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared."

foreverfan

Hum...

WillSaint? Guido? TheDude? Saintfan? Danno? ForeverFan?

It's a long list...

hagan714

This looks like a year were all the teams in the division will be loaded to put up points. I am trying to remember a time when NFC South was so loaded fire power.

Turn overs at key moments in the game could be the difference.

The Dude

Yep. Getting the ball back to Drew as much as possible is key.

foreverfan

When we had the 49ers, Rams and Saints... wait...
You can't remember... end of conversation....

ChrisXVI

Huh?

AsylumGuido

I know. I was about to ask what the Titans QB has to do with Tampa myself.

AsylumGuido

I'll play too.

I do not see Tampa as much of a threat. Yes, they did win nine games last season, but they also had the weakest schedule in the NFC South coming off the previous year's last place finish. Every year, as Dude mentioned, they fail to live up to the hype and Jameis Winston isn't the quality QB that many talking heads claim.

Carolina is also over-hyped based upon that 15-1 2015 season. But if you look back upon it you will notice how many of those games were won single-handedly by Cam Newton. If they were down and needed to go 70 yards for a score he would carry the ball five times to get those 70 yards to score. But, last season, teams finally learned how to defense Newton by punishing him whenever he had the ball. It was so effective that he had his worst season ever.

I too see Atlanta as the most serious threat, but the Falcon's run last season was spurred on by quite a bit of luck facing several teams missing key pieces including two shootouts with the Saints losing both CB's before the week three game and six CB's by the final game. Losing the SB in the manner they did will most likely have a negative impact as will losing the genius behind their offense, Kyle Shanahan.

I see the Saints as having just as good a chance as any of the others to take the division.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

The Dude

Btw after I posted that I knew it would be you who read the whole thing to try and point out whatever you could find wrong with the thread.

AsylumGuido

I was only the second one. Pretty much everyone in here would have pointed that out. I did read the whole thing and thought you made some very good points, to which I did point out that I agreed.