Is NFC South The Best Division In Football?
May 7th, 2011
Joe’s sure many of his readers watch NFL Network daily. Why Joe can’t imagine why one might choose not to have the real man channel in his home. Surely no football fan could deny himself such pleasure.
Last night on Total Access, in addition to watching footage from various player-organized practices, analysts Warren Sapp and Willie McGinest were posed with the question of whether the NFC South was the best division in football.
Both said, “No.” And Sapp revived the soft schedule/signature win debate that drove many Bucs fans nuts last season.
“[The NFC South] played the NFC West, so I can’t go there,” Sapp said.
McGinest and Sapp agreed the NFC South was the best division in the NFC entering 2011, but not the NFL.
Joe hopes the Bucs can at least climb into second place in the division. With two of their first eight games against the Saints, that could be decided early.
May 7th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Who cares who has the best division. I just want to have the best team. I’m certainly not rooting for second best. I believe were on our way to challenge for the top. You can tell theres not much going on when we have to try and debate who has the best division. Besides Carolina sucked last year.
May 7th, 2011 at 10:18 am
So who did they say had the best division?
May 7th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Joe here,
@Erick – They didn’t say.
May 7th, 2011 at 11:19 am
Wow Joe, what a fan – go Bucs, make second place in the division!!!
Thanks for keeping it real and not for being a Homer Joe.
May 7th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Joe here,
@Mr. Lucky — Just keepin’ it real, Mr. Lucky. Nobody here is going to cry if the Bucs finish in second place and make the playoffs.
May 7th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Speak for yourself Joe, the thought of second place has me emotional!
May 7th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
So which division is the best? The AFC east? WRONG. Only two good teams. AFC North? Wrong again. Once again, two good teams. NFC north? Same thing. NFC South- three teams with ten or more wins. Case closed.
May 7th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
So sapp thinks that they had a soft schedule. Is he now a hater? I have said, the amazingly weak schedule is generally accepted by anyone objective.
May 7th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
I’ll cry if we make 2nd place and don’t make it to the playoffs.
May 7th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Joe now, now, now I caught you on this one.
Joe wrote: “Joe hopes the Bucs can at least climb into second place in the division.”
Please point out WHERE you mention making the playoffs?
Was Joe’s original sentence a Freudian slip and JOE really believes that the Bucs won’t will the NFC South?
We haven’t even started training camp and already our fearless blogger has thrown in the towel…so sad… 🙁
May 7th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
How many games did the nfc south win in the playoffs? Zero, including a loss to a sub .500 team. Case closed.
May 7th, 2011 at 4:58 pm
Maybe Joe thinks that the New Orleans Saints draft will propel them back into the NFC South winners seat?
Maybe Joe was impressed by the Dixie Chicks landing Julio Jones and playing against the Talib-less Bucs that Joe believes that Atlanta will win the NFC South?
Or maybe, just maybe Joe thinks that Cam Newton will take the Carolina Kitties from worst to first in the NFC South?
Still can’t understand why Joe only hopes for 2nd place in the division???? This is Raheem’s 3rd season as HC and surely the Bucs need to make the playoffs in order to keep his job right? I mean that was the standard with Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden right?
May 7th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
No mr lucky, the sheep have amended the standard: since the team was handed to 2 inexperienced kids who took a 9-7 team to 3-13, the standard now is anything better than last in the division and more than 3 wins is good enough so long as the roster is youmg bc we are building for the future.
May 7th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
Rah gets a free pass every year because he is bla…me it on the rain, rain, raaaaaiiiin. You gotta blame it on something, but don’t put the blame on Rah.
Get used to it fan base. At least the media isn’t trashing the home team coach anymore, because they are in love with rah just because they ran off Gruden.
Therefore, Rah will get infinite excuses and unlimited media support. The glazers were smart by assigning this guy as the face of the franchise, if not just to please the media and force the majority to stand down on the head coach criticism chatter. It’s smart, because only the bravest 1% of the fan base will have the nerve to question Raheem.
So now the glazers have a head coach that not even the media can touch for many years to come. How dare you critique raheem Morris!
May 7th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
So I am guessing we should have just kept all the 30+ year old players so we could barely make it into the playoffs and lose in the first round? Come on you have to rebuild, no team can be on top forever. You have to get young talent in order to continually be successful. I liked what Tampa has done, to be honest I never liked that we got Gruden since we gave up all those draft picks to get him. Glad they got a super bowl out of it but as you can see the team has struggled to even win a playoff game. And what if we would have played a team other than the Raiders? Not saying we would have lost but the win might not have been as easy. Gruden isn’t that great of a coach or some team would have shoveled out a whole lot of money to get his services.
May 7th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
@thomas
So taking a 9-7 team that imploded and missed the playoffs to a 3-13 then a 10-6 record is worse than taking a Super Bowl winning team with one of the best defenses in league history (per NFL Network) to a 7-9 then a 5-11 record?
May 8th, 2011 at 12:54 am
When the Saints got smashed by Lowly Seattle, it did not do wonders for the NFC South argument.
May 8th, 2011 at 9:29 am
@The D says
Good point. If winning 13 games in two seasons with a team of rookies makes Raheem an amateur, what does winning 12 games in two seasons with a Superbowl winning team make Gruden?
May 8th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Guys, come on:
Gruden coached 11 years in the NFL and has only 3 losing seasons, one being the very unlucky year that both Chris Simms and Brian Griese were lost early for the year and we had to play the season out with Bruce GRadkowski a rookie 6th round pick. I think that is when the accusation of Gruden “collecting” quarterbacks began because he saw that it is plausible that you will have to win with your third stringer.
These Bucs may not win a game if Josh Johnson or Rudy is forced in to action.
Also, you omit that the 5-11 was followed by 11-5 and a division championship. You also forgot the other division championships that Gruden won here. Was Gruden a genius for turning a 5-11 team into a 11-5 team? NO, the team was better than 5-11. Same goes for the 3-13 – horrible decisions with selecting players/starters and coaches (or blaming them undeservedly) led to 3 wins when the team was capable of 7 or 8 probably. So I dont buy the 7 win improvement argument – RAh coached this team down to 3 wins, which lowered your expectations and made you “thrilled” at 10 wins.
Truth is: this was a 6-8 win team in 2009 if coached by anyone other than Rah; they were probably an 8 win team last year but for the amazingly easy schedule and a few gifts like the Redskin game.
THat is why I am not so “giddy” over what has taken place. What was their record at home last year? Blown out by PItt, blown out by NO, loss to Lions, loss to Falcons. Only the Falcon game was a good game from a fan standpoint.
ONly here on JBF with the exception of ERic, myself and a few others are the opinions 90% in love with where this team is. The only thing that is obvious is: the team seems to have found a franchise qb who is excellent late in games which is an invaluable commodity. Dom gets credit for that selection which most of us disagreed with at the time. OLson gets credit for coaching him up.
If you remove FReeman from this franchise – what is there to be excited about? I say very little. The Run D was the worst in the NFL< pass rush 31st I believe. Even if the 2 Dt's and DE's pan out, it probably wont be this year – so you are looking at year 4 for a solid defense. I don't think that fans must have that kind of patience.
If they lose this year and miss the playoffs – we all should be calling for Rah RAh's head, IMO. If they make the playoffs and compete he should be given credit, I don't see that happening.
May 8th, 2011 at 10:35 am
You never rebutted my point that what Gruden did to this team after the superbowl was a FIREABLE offense for taking a dominate team and turning it into garbage.
“Also, you omit that the 5-11 was followed by 11-5 and a division championship”
So say why cant Raheem do this? He took a team of nothing but rookies/ practice squad guys to a 10-6 record with a middle of the road schedule. But what happened to Grudens team? Oh yeah, first round playoff loss just like every other playoff apperance after that. Division championships mean NOTHING if you lose in the first round at home no less. We have to wait and see what happens with Rah this year. Playoff victories are what matter most so NO ONE knows what will happen this year (if we have a season of course)
May 8th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I guess the only way to calm u girls down is just to say that all things rah and glazer are just warm, cozy and wonderful. Well I dont believe that bc it is not.
Some things are fine, like qb, wr and maybe te. Other things are not: like the front 7, i think gmc is a major project and roy miller is marginal. I think the defense is poorly coached and they go into every game outplanned.
I will continue to call it how I see it. If joe asks me to stop or will gladly.
May 8th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I will gladly.
May 8th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
@Thomas
“Gruden coached 11 years in the NFL and has only 3 losing seasons, one being the very unlucky year that both Chris Simms and Brian Griese were lost early for the year and we had to play the season out with Bruce GRadkowski a rookie 6th round pick. I think that is when the accusation of Gruden “collecting” quarterbacks began because he saw that it is plausible that you will have to win with your third stringer.”
You seem to be a little confused. Gradkowski’s rookie season was 2006; Griese had joined the Bears by then. Perhaps in your mind you were combining 2005 (when Griese was injured after the 5-1 start and Simms took over to complete the 11-5 year) and 2006 (when Simms was injured in the third game – after scoring 3 points in the first two and Gradkowski took over for most of the rest only to be replaced by Rattay near the end to complete the 4-12 year).
May 8th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
You avoided my point again Thomas. Guess you really have nothing that goes against what I said