There is a major oddity in the NFL, and that is the NFC Southern Division.
- No Team has EVER repeated as champion.
- Almost always, the last place team finishes in first place the next season.
- It’s almost always one of the most competitive divisions.
- Each team has won the division 3 times; exactly.
In 2002 the NFL re-aligned the divisions which were getting cramped and out of control. For example, the NFC West had Atlanta and Carolina in the same division as St. Louis and New Orleans, and then the only true west coast team, San Francisco . The AFC Central which was always 4 teams, ballooned to 6 with the addition of the Cleveland Franchise coming back in 1999 and Jacksonville in 1996, to go along with Baltimore which WAS Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, Tennessee (Which was Houston) and Cincinnati.
The League added some sense of Geography while at the same time keeping the integrity of the divisional match ups that were historical like Dallas vs Washington, GreenBay vs Minnesota. Most of the teams from the NFC West were put in the new NFC South along with the odd team out from NFC Central, Tampa Bay. This was done in 2002 when the NFL added another team, the Houston Texans.
Of course we know the Bucs won the first division championship and went on to win the SuperBowl. The last place team, the Carolina Panthers, were swept by the Bucs that year, but the next season in 2003, Carolina won the South with a 4 game improvement, going 11-5 and going all the way to the SuperBowl; losing to New England.
Two years, two champs, both go to the SuperBowl! The NFC South was predicted to be a weak division, but instead it was very competitive. The Atlanta Falcons were in last place in 2003 with a 5-11 record. When 2004 came, Atlanta went 11-5 and the Panthers fell back to 7-9. The Bucs were in last place with a 5-11 mark.
2005 Brought the divisions first 2nd championship, as the Bucs went 11-5 along with Carolina, but Tampa Bay only lost one divisional game that year, to the Panthers. Carolina lost 2. So based on tie-breaker procedures, the Bucs continued the “worst to first” streak by winning the division; New Orleans was one of the worst teams in the NFL with a 3-13 season on the heels of hurricane damage.
So what did the Saints do? Went out and got a Free Agent QB from the Chargers named Drew Brees. As you would expect, the ’06 Saints won the South with a 10-6 record. At this point fans started to question the flip flopping of championships, and wondering why.
It was more than just a fluke. In 2005 the Saints beat only one NFC south team. The next year the Saints went 4-2 against their division mates, and it was the Bucs who had a defection of defensive coaches that helped the Bucs sink down to the bottom of the South at 4-12.
People questioned the benefits of losing the year before, but why only the NFC South? Other divisions reward bad teams with high draft picks. Some cried easy schedule, but after the Alignment in 2002, only two games per season were up in the air as far as who the teams were they would play. The old system rewarded bad teams with easy schedules. But since 2002, 14 games per year are already pre-determined for every team. I can tell you who the Bucs are going to play for 14 of their games in the 2028 season, if nothing changes like new teams or team alignments. The other two games? They are determined by what place you end up: Finish in last place, you’ll play two last place teams.
But thats hardly enough to explain 5 to 11 win turnarounds, and thats whats happening in the South.
2008 marked the end of the worst to first steak, after 7 seasons, the Atlanta Falcons, who finished in last place in 2007 after the coaching change, finished in 2nd place with an 11-5 record to the 12-4 Carolina Panthers. But even still, Atlanta made the playoffs- changing the streak to “Worst to Playoffs”!
2009 Resumed the “First” again, as the Saints won the division with a dominant 13-3 record after finishing with an 8-8 last place.
It never seemed to matter what year it was, the NFC South was starting to replace the NFC East as the best division in the conference. While the Western Division produced a 2 win Rams team, and the North featured the first winless team since 1976 Bucs, The South and East did not have a losing team in their ranks.
The first real threat to the streak happened in 2010, and yes, it was the Bucs that tried to mess it up! Tampa Bay (if you remember) finished a horrible 3-13 in 2009, and DID turn around and finish with a winning record the next season in ’10, but thanks to a horrible call against Kellen Winslow Jr vs Detroit, the Bucs were robbed of a playoff spot that Green Bay took to a Super Bowl championship. The Falcons won the division with a 1 game better divisional record, but the Saints made the playoffs too. It was Carolina’s turn to stink the joint up, finishing 2-14, and with that finally ended the streak as the Panthers finished 6-10 in 2011.
It hasn’t happened since, partly because streaks are meant to be broken; but for almost a decade, the last place team in the division turned their season around the next year. Since 2011 the Bucs have finished in the cellar each year.
Always feeling the need to be weird, the NFC South is trying to continue its reputation of parity. In 2012, the Falcons went 13-3 (and of course fell from the sky last year), but all the three other teams went 7-9. You want parity? Each team in the NFC South went 3-3 against each other, right down the line, each team shows a 3-3 divisional record. Tampa Bay came in the cellar only because its 4-8 conference record was 1 win less than the Panthers and Saints who went 5-7 against the NFC.
So no team in the South has won MORE, or LESS, than 3 championships. Each team except Atlanta has been to the SuperBowl, with only the Panthers losing. The Falcons however have the distinction of producing 6 playoff births. The Saints come in right behind them with 5, Carolina with 4, Tampa Bay with 3 (all division titles.
The division winners are 7-5 in their first playoff game, and 6 times the South produced a Wild Card team, which went 3-3 in their first games. Parity of course means Good and Bad; Up until 2012 no team finished LAST in the division consecutive years, until Tampa Bay did it for the last three straight years.
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