NFC South Divison Preview

Over the next few weeks/ months, We’ll go division by division in these “divisional check in” highlighting some data nuggets and angles we find most valuable. While not every team will get a full breakdown, we’ll touch on every team as we work through the board. As always, the goal is to match the data presented with your own ideas and intuitions in forming theses on these teams.

Let’s take a quick glance at Offensive and Defensive EDP, or Earned Drive Points which measures the efficacy and sustainability of drive level success, to set the baseline for our analysis. Of course EDP is just one metric and is by no means dispositive to team success. Nonetheless it should give us a rough frame from which we can analyze the division and teams.

This was a NFC South with four below average efficiency teams with the Falcons and Bucs right at league average and the Panthers a tier behind and much worse on defense. The Saints defense was well above average and struggled offensively-- though that number includes half a season with Spencer Rattler at QB.

TB:

Central Q: Can Baker Return to his 2024 form?

Baker Mayfield heads into his 4th season in Tampa with his 4th different offensive play caller. And Mayfield has had varying degrees of success in his 3 years in Tampa.

Mayfield was sitting right around average in 2023 (70th percentile EPA, 50th PFF Grade) and a bit below average in 2025 (48th and 40th) following a terrific 2024 which saw him as one of the better QBs of the season (93rd and 85th percentiles). Now in 2024, as we highlighted last year in this space, Baker had one of the best ever season on productions on screens that was very unlikely to sustain itself in 2025, especially without Liam Coen. And while regression in certain areas was bound to happen, I don’t think that tells the full story for Baker Mayfield from 2025.

If we look at his season in varying stats we see a sharp cut off right around week 6 when Baker Mayfield injured his biceps and throwing arm.