The NFC South is NFL parity taken to its logical extreme. The league’s structure (salary cap and free agency) means that every year several mediocre teams aspire to be pretty good. It was inevitable, then, that eventually a division would consist entirely of bad teams aspiring to be mediocre.
The Saints lost to the Ravens Monday night because, of course they did. The Falcons (4-7) still lead the division by virtue of their victory over the Saints (4-7), another deeply flawed team. There's nothing but deeply flawed teams in the NFC South.
Every NFC South team is three games below .500 or worse—a first in NFL history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. It's possible that a 5-11 record will be good enough to win the NFC South. Repeat: the champion of the NFC South could plausibly be 5-11.
This is what parity can get you. In theory, it’s a system that rewards teams that draft well, find value with their limited money, develop young players and put together effective game plans. Few teams have done all of that as well as the Ravens, who got winning plays against the Saints from running back Justin Forsett (former seventh-round pick, minimum contract), cornerback Will Hill (Giants castoff) and wide receiver Steve Smith (35-years old, $3.5 million signing bonus).
Parity also punishes teams who make too many mistakes with their limited resources and/or those that have bad injury luck that scuttles their depth. The Falcons are guilty on both counts—they don’t have many players producing value above their cost and several who are not (plus now some suspect end-game coaching). On that final Browns drive, injuries meant the Falcons were trying to get a game-winning stop with third-string cornerbacks and safeties.
I liked the NFL better when there were three or four great teams, several good teams chasing them and a handful of bad ones with no chance. This preference was especially strong as I watched Brian Hoyer flail around the Georgia Dome before Mike Smith’s brain freeze led to the Falcons flailing around the Georgia Dome.
Alas, I’m in the minority on that because mediocre football is still making lots of money for NFL teams.
It's tailor-made for TV (though zombies are encroaching on its turf). Gamblers still like to bet on it even as the NFL continues its weird public stance against sports gambling after betting has gone mainstream. Fantasy geeks (call them casual gamblers) care less about the quality of NFL games than the performance of "their" players. Government at every level continues to subsidize the league's billionaire owners with taxpayer cash while the feds protect their monopoly.
There’s no incentive for the NFL to change a system in which mediocrity is rewarded. When every single team from one division can’t even meet that low bar, you get the 2014 NFC South.
