The NFL Schedule is setting up a tight race to end the season
Last night’s schedule release set up a potentially tense and fast paced race for the NFC South crown this season. The Carolina Panthers, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New Orleans Saints comprise one of the most chaotic and, often, silliest divisions in professional football. This year’s schedule gives them plenty of room to make their annual clown college of a competition into a true four-team race right down to the final weeks.
The NFC South is a silly place
Every team in the South is inherently flawed and yet full of hope. The Panthers are certainly up-and-coming, the Falcons are track to win the off season, the Bucs are going to age out of their recent “dynasty” any day now, and the Saints are, well, a perennially competitive dumpster fire. Every one of these teams has proven over the course of multiple head coaches and multiple more years than they can confound expectations in any direction.
The NFC South is home to four of the top ten easiest schedules in the NFL, largely by virtue of each team having to play each of the other teams twice. With the exception of the Saints, who will enter the 2025 season with their worst quarterback situation since before the Drew Brees era, every team in the division is circling every other divisional game as “winnable” on their calendars. Predicting a winner of this division is more reading tea leaves and entrails than it is actual forecasting.
Tight timing means wild tie breaks
The schedule is favoring the NFC South’s preferred brand of chaos by back loading almost the entire divisional schedule. Of the twelve divisional games that will be played across the season, only the Week 1 Bucs at Falcons and Week 3 Falcons at Panthers games will be played before Week 8. The Saints play their first divisional game, vs Tampa Bay, that week.
Nine of the 12 divisional games take place between Week 8 and Week 18. Five of the Panthers’ six divisional games take place between Week 10 and Week 18. The Falcons play four of theirs and the Saints play five of theirs after Week 10. Four of Tampa Bay’s NFC South games come in a five week period stretching from Weeks 14 to 18.
Long story short, the tie breakers are likely to be nuts this year.
What is actually going to happen?
The Saints are the likeliest team to bomb out of the race early based on overall record. Yes, they may have an easy schedule, but they have the biggest question mark on offense of any of the NFC South teams. The Bucs meanwhile, are the likeliest team to hold an early lead in this race. They aren’t projected to take any major steps backward and have won the division for the last four seasons straight.
The Falcons and Panthers, however, are both feeling optimistic about this season. Either of them could challenge the Bucs. The Panthers have the easier start to their schedule, while the Falcons look poised to stumble out of the gate. Their Weeks 1 through seven are a hard slog:
- WEEK 1: vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- WEEK 2: at Minnesota Vikings, Sunday Night Football
- WEEK 3: at Carolina Panthers
- WEEK 4: vs Washington Commanders
- WEEK 5: BYE
- WEEK 6: vs Buffalo Bills, Monday Night Football
- WEEK 7: at San Francisco 49ers
That stretch features two of the Falcons five prime time games of the season. Things even out with the Falcons getting a break as the Panthers enter the teeth of their schedule, but I’d rather be Carolina with the gentler entry into the season.
Smart money is still going to be on Tampa Bay to take the division until one of the other teams shows tangible progress on the field, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Carolina Panthers in second place most of the season. With a wide open divisional schedule crammed into the last half of the season, that means the division could really be anybody’s for the taking in December.