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2002 standings

NFC South
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12 4 0
Atlanta Falcons 9 6 1
New Orleans Saints 9 7 0
Carolina Panthers 7 9 0

Tampa looked all-world winng the SB in a breeze over Oakland

2003 standings

NFC South W L T
Carolina Panthers 11 5 0
New Orleans Saints 8 8 0
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 7 9 0
Atlanta Falcons 5 11 0

Carolina loses in SB

This is our year baby!

 

from twitter: Clausen hits Edwards in traffic! Nice grab

.... could we be hearing that lots this year?

 

How good your opponents are is rarely the determining factor for your season. Teams go from bad to good and back to bad so quickly any more that it is more about how well you play and how consistent you are.

I think the team we had on the field towards the end of last season is a playoff caliber team. Once Moore got his feet under him we looked like the team we should have been all season. The problem now is that we have lost so much on the defensive side of the ball that is hard to say what will happen. I think the offense will be pretty good. If Smith can stay healthy and Moore keeps playing well we will score some points. I am not sure we can stop anyone on defense though. With Meek's system our pass D should be OK but I think we are going to get run on a lot. The DTs are all suspect and now Beason is going to play out of position. A lot is going to have to go right for us for the defense to be even in the top twenty against the run.

Bottom line 8 wins sounds about right.

 

Wouldn't it be easier to play well and consistently against the worse teams? Seems to me quality of opponents is very important in the regular season for example would you rather play the NFC west or NFC east?

 

Let me clarify that. How good the teams you are going to face look at the start of the season usually has little to do with how good you are going to be. Obviously if you had to play the '85 Bears every other game then you are going to struggle. There is a very good chance that several playoff teams from last year will struggle this year. Teams that look great now might not look so great come November.

 

The schedule has everything to do with it, especially when you're the youngest team in the NFL.

 

i dunno. last 5 games of the season (4-1), our startingD pretty much looked like:

DTs - Hollis and Lewis
DEs - Peppers and Brayton
LBs - Beason, Anderson, Diggs
CBs - Marshall and Gamble
STs - Harris and Godfrey

we can't be worse than those 2 DTs (with hayden their primary backup).

Peppers cost us as many games with his halfass play as he help us when; and, it sounds like we have some guys that are going to fill in well

the lineup with Connor will be stronger. Diggs was marginal. Connor is ready to be a really good mlb. Beason will be better than Davis at Will and is going to have a monster year statistically. Count on it.

Harris was a liability. Martin will provide better range and ballhawking. Godfrey has beefed up.

this year's D is gonna be better than the D that went 4-1 at the end of last year. i think it will be top 10.

 

This is the only part I disagree with. Beason isn't as good as Davis in coverage, and I think he'll take a step back because of that. I don't think he'll be a liability, but I feel like a line up with Beason at MLB is better than a lineup of Beason at WLB. I will however say I DO like Connor, and I feel he can be a very good starter. So I knoew at some point they'd have to find a way to get him on the field.

 

Lewis and Thomas were proven players who may not have been great but were solid. The guys we have now are all guys who are unproven and coming off injuries. I was ready to see Peppers gone but to say he did not help us win some games is not being fair. Remember the Vikings game? I do not think Beason at the WLB is going to be as good as Beason at MLB. Maybe I am wrong but at the very least it is an uncertainty. Harris was good against the run. His coverage may have been weak but we need more help against the run than the pass.

I see no way this D will be top ten. I hope you are right but you are assuming a whole lot of things are going to fall just right in our favor and that usually does not happen.

 

We might miss Diggs most, behind Peppers. He was steady, athletic, and as our third best LB he was better than our 2nd best is now, whoever that'll be. He was always where he should be, always. Anderson on a good day is out 10% of the time or more - and despite being the ideal candidate of what's left, to be at WLB, he's not, because he can't put his athleticism into play.

And for whatever reason, even though Connor was beastly at SLB in NE, was never given much of a chance there...before Davis got hurt, seems like Anderson was just expected to have the job. I dunno - Connor makes sense inside, but no less at SLB. So now, in a way, we have three different players at our 'strength', all out of position.

I was a quiet proponent of Lewis personally, even though he never completely regained his early 2006 form (the best football of his life, and he was outplaying a fat Jenkins). But the numbers - the salary, the suddenly declined number of pressures from 2008 despite being in a D more suited to him - they don't add up. He not only wasn't getting push, he wasn't closing the deal (.5 sacks, worst since 2003). I'd have kept him, but I wouldn't have made most of these moves (not unlike 2008 and 2009's more radical moves, they still make sense).