Shhh – NFC South quietly making waves

You know that division where every team is at or above .500? The one with all the hoopla, the top-notch quarterbacks and such? Okay, the NFC East has lived up to its hype for the most part. The division boasts the defending Super Bowl champions and everyone’s consensus Super Bowl pick for this season. In addition to the Giants and Cowboys, the Redskins have been an early-season surprise at 4-2 while the Eagles are treading water at 3-3.
But the East isn’t the only NFC division with an impressive resume through six weeks. Thanks to the upstart Falcons, the South also has three teams with winning records and a fourth at 3-3. The Buccaneers, Falcons, and Panthers are all 4-2 thanks to solid quarterback play and strong defenses. The Saints, another chic Super Bowl pick this year, have been their usual Jekyll-and-Hyde selves, hanging in despite a boatload of injuries.
Let’s face it, sexiness sells. The NFC South is hardly “sexy”. The Bucs and Panthers in particular are hard-nosed, grind out it teams who rarely achieve style points for their success. Even with a dynamic player like Steve Smith, Carolina has never won pretty. The Falcons have garnered more attention in recent years for their disgraced former star quarterback than anything they’ve done on the field. Fortunately, it’s been a new young sensation at QB that’s helped Atlanta regenerate excitement.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who truly believes this year’s NFC Super Bowl representative will come from outside the NFC East. The North and West are clearly a cut-below. But lest we forget that it was just a few years ago that the NFC South produced back-to-back Super Bowl teams and then a title game representative the next. While they have won a total of just one playoff game since 2005, perhaps it’s time to start giving them some props again.