Here's some quick hit thoughts for the NFC South after NFL Week 4.
- The Falcons are one of the few teams in the NFL that choose to “go heavy” at the running back position on their 46 man game day roster. The team once again had five active backs (Jackson, Freeman, Rodgers, Smith and DiMarco) but only gave one carry to Rodgers and just two to Freeman. With only seven active offensive linemen, the Falcons were forced to play Toilolo at RT once the injuries began to mount. Moving forward, I’m curious if this team will deactivate one of their running backs to give their banged up offensive line a little more help.
- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are simply a better team with Mike Glennon at quarterback. Glennon may not be a franchise quarterback, but he’s had a respectable 84.1 QB rating for his young career. The Bucs needed every bit of the 302 yards he passed for in order to beat Pittsburgh on the road. At 1-3, they’re not quite out of the race for the NFC South despite several dreadful performances.
- When you look over the career numbers for Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, you find that 2013 was the anomaly year in his time calling plays. Ryan has only coached one other top 10 defense. That was a Raiders team that went 2-14 as most of their opponents could be offensively conservative and win. The 2014 Saints defense is currently 27th in points allowed and 29th in yards.
- The story of the 2014 Carolina Panthers will be written like this: the offensive line couldn’t keep Cam Newton healthy. Newton doesn’t look right, and he’s constantly dealing with pressure from the pass rush. And over the past two weeks, the Panthers defense hasn’t been up to their early season standard. The Panthers have given up 38 and 37 points over the past couple of weeks. Some of that has been mediocre special teams play as well.