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: NFC South per ESPN - Ladypanther - 05-29-2025
NFC SOUTH
Atlanta Falcons
The superlative: Least likely to worry about tomorrow
Some of the worst decisions franchises can make come when the team's incentives aren't aligned with the people who work for the team. Seven years removed from their last winning season and with a quarterback who has all of three career starts under center in Michael Penix Jr., the Falcons should not be all-in. There are reasons to be optimistic about what the future might hold, sure, but they were not one player away this offseason.
General manager Terry Fontenot, though, might have been one player away from having a new job. After the disastrous, virtually inexplicable decision to guarantee Kirk Cousins $90 million in March 2024 and draft Penix a month later, and its natural conclusion with Cousins being benched by the end of his first year in Atlanta, the clock has been ticking on Fontenot's time with the Falcons. With the former Saints executive batting about 1-for-8 (Drake London) on his Day 1 and 2 picks in 2021 and 2022, it seems as if Atlanta is treading water. He is only the seventh GM since 2000 to start his career with four losing seasons and get a shot at turning things around in Year 5.
As a result, the Falcons ended up treating 2025 like it was their last chance to fix their longest-running issue. Having ranked 31st or 32nd in sack rate in three of the past four seasons, they took a huge swing on attempting to plug their hole on the edge. After whiffing on first-round picks (Vic Beasley, Takkarist McKinley) and free agent signings (Dante Fowler Jr.) over the past decade, Fontenot and the Falcons used the No. 15 pick on linebacker Jalon Walker, then moved up 11 picks later and sent a 2026 first-rounder to the Rams to grab defender James Pearce Jr.
In one fell swoop, the Falcons might have solved their pass-rushing issues. There's no problem with them taking edge defenders, given that it was both their most obvious need and a premium position that's hard to find in free agency. Walker is a hybrid edge rusher/linebacker who drew some Micah Parsons comparisons before the draft. Pearce led the SEC in sacks in 2023 and racked up 19 takedowns over his final two years in school. You can understand why Raheem Morris and Fontenot wanted to add those guys to their roster.
Cost matters, though! As much as we want to trust the evaluation skills of NFL executives, the reality is that trading up is hardly a guarantee a team will land a successful edge rusher. Vikings fans were thrilled to land a player some regarded as the best defender in the class a year ago when they completed a second trade-up to grab Dallas Turner; he had three sacks and played 300 snaps as a rookie. Trade-ups in the modern draft era for edge rushers in Round 1 have included moves for McKinley, Dion Jordan, Leonard Floyd and Marcus Davenport, none of whom earned a second contract from the team that took him. Chandler Jones and Montez Sweat were more successful examples, but they were much smaller moves than the one Atlanta made for Pearce.
The biggest trade for an edge rusher in recent drafts was Houston's move for Will Anderson Jr. in 2023, and while that move also included a future first-round pick, the Texans turned things around immediately and have no regrets. A move like that is entirely within the realm of possibility for Pearce and the Falcons, and if he pans out while playing for a team that makes the playoffs in 2025, Fontenot and Morris won't regret dealing their first-rounder in 2026 to get him on board.
The reality is there are more scenarios in which this doesn't work than ones where it does. History tells us the chances of Pearce having his fifth-year option picked up -- which is the bare minimum for the deal not being a disaster -- are somewhere in the 60% range. Other players will have that option picked up without doing enough to justify a second contract from the team that drafted them, as was the case with Davenport and the Saints. The Falcons might also struggle even with Pearce on the roster, which could end up with them sending a top-10 pick to the Rams next year, making the price even more dramatic.
The Falcons will have needs next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Compounding future draft capital to get one guy right now is a risky bet that doesn't pay off as often as teams would like. The logic of "If it works, who cares?" sounds great, but it isn't a smart use of resources. Nobody cares if you spent your paycheck on lottery tickets if you win the lottery, but that doesn't mean it's the correct way for you to use what you have.
There are scenarios in which making that sort of plunge makes sense -- going after a potential franchise quarterback or using a small amount of capital to move up a few spots within a round -- but this seems more desperate than calculated.
Carolina Panthers
The superlative: Most likely to have definitely solved their problem this time, for sure
Unlike the Falcons, the Panthers seem insistent on addressing their weak spot every single offseason. Since trading DJ Moore to the Bears as part of the deal for Bryce Young in 2023, Carolina has thrown asset after asset at wide receiver in an attempt to get its young quarterback some playmakers. Its moves for veterans have produced mixed results: Adam Thielen has been a reliably solid option and averaged a team-high 1.9 yards per route run over the past two seasons, but Diontae Johnson's brief run will probably be remembered only by obsessive Immaculate Grid users.
The draft is where the Panthers have focused their efforts. After drafting Jonathan Mingo in 2023, Xavier Legette in 2024 and Tetairoa McMillan last month, they have invested top-40 picks on wide receivers in three consecutive drafts. They're the first team to do that in 20 years, but even they haven't gone to the heights that the 2003-05 Lions did: Detroit used three top-10 picks to add Charles Rogers, Roy Williams and Mike Williams. Two years later, the Lions added a fourth who stuck around slightly longer -- future Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson.
The Lions went 1-for-3 at best with those three consecutive picks in the top 10. The Panthers are on pace to go 0-for-2. Mingo was dealt to the Cowboys before the end of his second season. Legette averaged a middling 1.3 yards per route run as a rookie, ranked 134th in ESPN's receiver score and generated 104 receiving yards below what an average receiver would have done with the same targets in 2024, per NFL Next Gen Stats, the 17th-worst mark in the league.
It's perfectly reasonable to be patient with Legette and see what he can do in 2025, but it's also realistic to point out that he wasn't an impact player as a rookie. His most notable moment was dropping what would have potentially been a winning touchdown reception to beat the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles.
The Panthers will hope McMillan makes more of an instant impact. It's clear they're attempting to build a bully-ball group of receivers by adding Mingo (6-foot-2, 220 pounds), Legette (6-3, 227 pounds) and Jalen Coker (6-3, 213 pounds), an undrafted free agent who arguably outplayed Legette last season. At 6-4, McMillan is another big target for Young. At Arizona, McMillan was consistently able to leverage that frame into making tough catches. His massive catch radius and ability to create after bringing in the ball would be huge pluses for the Carolina offense if they translate quickly to the pro level.
One question might be where the Panthers will have McMillan play. The 22-year-old has the frame of a classic X receiver, and Carolina still needs to fill that archetype after Mingo failed to pan out. The first-rounder might play better in the slot, though; over his final two college seasons, McMillan averaged 2.2 yards per route run from the outside but a whopping 4.2 yards per route run across 303 routes from the slot. The Panthers relied on Thielen and Coker in the slot a year ago, though, and they were the team's two most efficient wideouts.
McMillan might be best in a hybrid role where he sees plenty of snaps as a "power slot," but Carolina's need for a classic outside receiver could mean the new addition plays most of his snaps as the X. One of the ways teams get more out of their draft picks is by using them in roles that play to their strengths. McMillan might end up being good enough to thrive anywhere, but the Panthers could be leaving some opportunity on the table if they use their top pick in a traditional role.
New Orleans Saints
The superlative: Most likely to be dragged into the future
Somewhat unwillingly, the Saints can now see a light at the end of their salary cap tunnel. Faced with several bad options, they initially chose to pick up quarterback Derek Carr's option for 2025, converting more than $38 million into a bonus to perform their annual exercise of creating short-term cap space. While concerns about Carr's shoulder arose over the spring, the expectation was that he would be the team's starter next season.
Everything changed earlier this month. Facing an uncertain future, Carr chose to retire, a move that will hand $30 million of the $40 million he was owed for 2025 back to the Saints. If all goes as expected when he officially files retirement paperwork next month, the team would owe just under $56 million in dead money for him, with $19.2 million in 2025 and $36.7 million in 2026.
With Carr and Ryan Ramczyk both officially retiring after June 1 for cap purposes, the Saints will end up with about $25 million in cap space this season. There's not much to spend that on at this point of the offseason, but they should be able to roll the vast majority of that money over into 2026, which will come in handy.
The Saints will be on the hook for just under $49 million in dead money between Carr and Ramczyk next offseason. That's a lot, but they will also have $52.3 million in dead money exiting from their 2024 cap, with the deals of cornerback Marshon Lattimore ($31.7 million) and wide receiver Michael Thomas ($9.2 million) finally coming off the books.
Several New Orleans veterans will also see their deals expire after the 2025 season, with tight end Taysom Hill, linebacker Demario Davis, defensive end Cameron Jordan and safety Tyrann Mathieu all expected to become free agents. While the Saints will no longer be paying those players active salaries, they'll owe an additional $52 million in dead money for them. It wouldn't be a surprise to see them offer zombie extensions to one or more of those players at the end of 2025, mostly so they can retire in a Saints uniform and spread the dead cap hit owed for the remainder of their deals between 2025 and 2026.
If the Saints can spread all four of those dead cap hits over two years and roll over about $25 million, they would have about $33 million in cap space to work with in 2026 without needing to restructure any other deals. That's admittedly a roster that would be down a handful of starters/regular contributors and would be without any replacements for those players, but that would be the first year in many in which they wouldn't need to go on a restructuring spree with their active players for the sole purpose of getting under the cap. They would have about $5.8 million if they chose to eat all of those dead cap figures in 2026, which would likely require the organization to restructure some veteran deals for defensive end Carl Granderson and running back Alvin Kamara to create enough room to fill out the roster and sign its draft class.
Are the Saints going to be flush with cap space next year? No. With Carr's ill-fated run behind them and a handful of veteran contracts expiring, though, they will look more like the rest of the NFL on their balance sheet in 2026 and have plenty of room in 2027. They'll need that room to rebuild their roster, but the days of the Saints borrowing from the future to pay for the present are seemingly coming to a close.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The superlative: Most likely to petition the NFL to use an extra football
I used this one last year for the Texans after they added receiver Stefon Diggs and running back Joe Mixon to their roster, but the Bucs are the 2025 example of a team that has many mouths to feed. To start, they brought back every single player who caught a pass or took a handoff last season, short cornerback Tavierre Thomas, who had one carry on a fake punt attempt. That play lost 2 yards, so they technically return 7,043 of the 7,041 rushing and receiving yards they racked up.
That concept even undersells how deep the 2025 Bucs look on paper. Chris Godwin was on pace for a 1,398-yard receiving season when he suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 7. He returned to the team after dipping his toes in free agency. Rookie wideout Jalen McMillan flashed in Godwin's absence, and tight end Cade Otton even had a stretch in midseason when he served as Godwin's slot replacement and generated 258 yards and three scores over a three-game span, but the Bucs won't need to rely on either of them after adding wideout Emeka Egbuka with their first-round pick.
None of Tampa's wide receivers or tight ends played a full 17-game slate last season, and perhaps the Egbuka addition is a nod to that experience. While Mike Evans' combination of size and skill set as a vertical receiver is unique, the Bucs don't have to be reliant on any one player on offense. They have the depth to weather injuries and a group of receivers versatile enough to move around the formation and fill any role. Egbuka has received raves for his all-around game and professional readiness, but the Bucs don't need him to be an immediately impactful receiver. They don't need Godwin to hit the ground running after a serious injury. Egbuka might be considered a luxury pick given some of the needs this team had elsewhere on the roster, but if the Bucs have him as their top receiver in midseason instead of Otton and Sterling Shepard, do they beat a Chiefs team that they took to overtime?
And in the big picture, the Egbuka addition immediately had me wondering about Evans' future and whether it's away from Tampa Bay. Godwin signed a three-year, $66 million contract this offseason to return. Quarterback Baker Mayfield, who outplayed his salary last season, has his compensation rise from $30 million in 2025 to $40 million in 2026, a figure that would grow larger with a potential extension.
Evans is entering the final season of the two-year, $41 million deal he signed last March. After missing three games, he had just 335 receiving yards through Week 10 before getting hot down the stretch and narrowly topping the 1,000-yard mark for the 11th consecutive season. He finished the season averaging a career-high 2.6 yards per route run and was tied for fourth in ESPN's receiver score.
It's difficult to imagine Evans wearing another team's jersey, in part because so many of the people attending Bucs games are wearing his jersey. Team owners don't like letting go of franchise icons without good reason. When Evans was able to negotiate with teams during the 2024 offseason, there wasn't an enormous market for his services, and Tampa was able to bring him back on a relatively modest deal given his résumé. (Consider that Godwin got a larger average salary coming off a serious ankle injury.) I would be surprised if Evans played elsewhere before retiring, but the Egbuka addition might give the Bucs added leverage if they struggle to come to terms with their star wideout after the 2025 season.
The one key person who isn't coming back to Tampa offense's is Liam Coen, who joined the Jaguars after serving as the Bucs' offensive coordinator in 2024. Coach Todd Bowles & Co. were able to overcome the loss of Dave Canales to the Panthers in 2023 by making a successful hire in Coen, who wasn't impressive in his lone season as the offensive coordinator with the Rams before doing much better in Tampa Bay. The coordinating duties now fall to 34-year-old Josh Grizzard, who has never called plays before and joined the Bucs only last spring. The bar is high for the first-time coordinator, but he certainly won't lack for playmakers in his offense.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45318618/2025-nfl-offseason-nfc-teams-best-worst-deals-contracts-draft-picks-superlatives
IMO Panthers challenge the Bucs to win the division.
RE: : NFC South per ESPN - Hobbit99 - 05-29-2025
I think you're right LP. I think the Panthers have a winning season this year -- for the first time in...... well, YEARS. There is no way to determine how the rest of the division teams will perform, but I think the Panthers have a real shot at the playoffs. Our division games will be the determining factor. If we win 4 out of 6, we will win the division. And I think we could win 5 or 6. I feel pretty solid about winning 3. That means we have to step up against the Falcons and the Bucs.
¿Quien sabe?