Names Not in the NFL News
The Mike Evans/Chris Godwin injuries nerf the whole NFC South. Let's talk about the Packers O-line and the Broncos defense instead.
The NFC South is back, sadly.
The Chris Godwin and Mike Evans injuries eliminate the Buccaneers from serious consideration for being considered seriously. Sure, they could still win the division at 9-8; it’s kinda their jam. That does not obligate anyone to take interest in them.
I don’t want to be too glib about Evans and Godwin. They’ve been one of the NFL’s best wide receiver tandems since Godwin became a regular in 2018. They bore witness to Jameis Winston’s 30-interception season. They extended Brady’s reign over the NFL. They revitalized Baker Mayfield. They’re an all-time duo, with Super Bowl rings and one likely future Hall of Fame nod to show for it. But they are gone for the foreseeable future, and they have taken any enthusiasm for the NFL’s most mediocre division with them. The NFC South has a Final Destination knack for such fatalism.
The last time the Bucs were without Evans and Godwin in the same game was Week 16 of 2021. They spanked an awful Panthers team 32-6. They had Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Antonio Brown in that game. The last time they were without Godwin and Evans and lacked a trio of Hall of Fame-caliber veterans to help out was the last two weeks of 2019. Breshad Perriman and Justin Watson were Winston’s top wide receivers for those games. The Bucs went 0-2 and fell out of playoff contention.
The Saints were a story for two weeks at the start of 2024, then injuries claimed them as well. Cornerback Paulson Adebo (broken leg) is the latest Saints starter to go down, joining Derek Carr, Chris Olave, Rashid Shaheed, Eric McCoy and others. The Saints bench is full of minimum-wage day laborers because of the team’s legendary salary cap shenanigans. Alas, the Saints will be deprived of the 10-win 2024 season that would finally validate their decision to take out five mortgages over four years!
The Falcons are not particularly injury-plagued, but they remain the Falcons. They saw the Buccaneers and Saints stumble and decided to hold themselves back against the Seahawks like the kid who gets a detention on purpose to hang out with his buddies.
The DVOA analysis at FTN Network gives the Buccaneers a 69.3% chance of reaching the playoffs, the Falcons a 55.8% chance and the Saints, even with a Carr return factored into the calculations, just a 15.2% chance. Those figures only look impressive because someone must win the division. NFC South Wild Card hopes are already dangling by thin head-to-head tiebreaker threads (the Bucs and Falcons each beat the Eagles!) that history and common sense tell us are sure to snap in the next few weeks.
(If the Falcons’ chances seem surprisingly low, it’s because the analytics are also aware that they are the Falcons. Falcon-ness has baked into their statistical profile over the years.)