Last Updated on September 3, 2026 9:46 pm by Erwin Noguera
Atlanta is carrying four quarterbacks on its 53-man roster and has not decided which one starts on the NFL regular season Week 1.
Tampa Bay handed its backup job to an undrafted rookie and released the veteran they signed to do it.
New Orleans kept three quarterbacks after neither backup convinced anybody. And Carolina, the defending division champion, has the longest odds in its own division.
This is the most wide-open race in football, and it is wide open for the least flattering reason: three of the four teams finished 8-9 last season, and the win totals span just two games from top to bottom. Nine wins probably takes it.
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Here is the division six days out.
New Orleans Saints — The Schedule Is the Case
Division odds: +265 to +275.
We named the Saints a surprise team a fortnight ago, and nothing since has changed the reasoning. It comes down to the calendar.
New Orleans holds one of the three easiest schedules in the league, alongside Cleveland and Cincinnati. Two of those three are rebuilding. The Saints are not; they closed 2025 by winning four of their final five, and Kellen Moore’s first season went better than expected.
Cutdown brought genuinely good news on two veterans.Alvin Kamara (knee) and Cameron Jordan (hamstring) were both kept off injured reserve, which signals the club expects them back quickly rather than in November.
The bad news is at receiver. First-round pick Jordyn Tyson was placed on IR with a designation to return, meaning he misses at least the first four games with a hamstring problem. Behind that, Bryan Bresee is believed to have torn an ACL, and Dillon Radunz is gone for the year.
New Orleans also kept three quarterbacks after an uneven preseason from backups Zach Wilson and Spencer Rattler, which tells you how thin the confidence is behind Tyler Shough. They released running back Zamir White and edge rusher Garrett Nelson to make room.
Prediction: 9-8, division winners. The softest schedule in a division where nine wins is enough.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Favourites With a Rookie One Snap Away
Division odds: +200, the shortest in the division.
Tampa Bay is chasing a fifth division title in six years, and the market has installed them accordingly. Baker Mayfield remains the most established quarterback in the NFC South, which in this division is a meaningful advantage on its own.
The backup situation is the story, and it is strange. Tampa signed veteran Jake Browning this offseason specifically to back up Mayfield. Then undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels beat him out in camp, and the Buccaneers released Browning (along with Connor Bazelak) rather than carry both.
That is either enormous confidence in Daniels or a roster crunch dressed up as a decision. Either way, Tampa Bay is one Mayfield injury away from an undrafted rookie starting in a division decided by tiebreakers.
They also moved on from Chris Braswell, a second-round pick who did not make it to his third season. Hitting on second-round picks is how teams sustain runs like Tampa’s, and this one did not hit.
Prediction: 9-8, wild card. The same record as New Orleans, losing the division on tiebreakers. The floor here is solid, and the ceiling is capped by depth.
Carolina Panthers — Defending Champions, Longest Odds
Division odds: +310 to +320 — last in their own division, having won it.
Carolina won the NFC South last season and reached the playoffs. The market has responded by pricing them fourth, which is a judgement about whether the rebuild is real rather than about last season’s result.
Everything depends on Bryce Young’s fourth year. Carolina picked up his fifth-year option but has made no decision on his long-term future, and the club has been open that he is expected to earn it. The betting markets frame the season neatly: his passing total is set at 3,000.5 yards and his touchdown total at 20.5. Clear those and Carolina extends him. Miss them, and the rebuild starts again at the most expensive position.
The supporting cast is better than the price suggests.Tetairoa McMillan leads a receiving corps that is genuinely ascending. Devin Lloyd and Jaelan Phillips headline the defensive additions, joining a scrappy Ejiro Evero unit built around Derrick Brown up front and Jaycee Horn in the secondary. Jonathon Brooks offers real dual-threat value in the backfield when healthy, the qualifier that has followed him since he arrived.
Dave Canales enters his third season, which is usually where a coaching hire is judged. Carolina released quarterback Kyle Trask and safety Isaiah Simmons at cutdown.
They open at home against Chicago on 13 September.
Prediction: 8-9. Better than the odds imply, and dependent on one player in a way no contender should be.
Atlanta Falcons — Four Quarterbacks, No Answer
Division odds: bunched with the middle of the division.
Atlanta won eight games in 2025 and closed on a four-game winning streak, which put them on national breakout lists. We declined to pick them a fortnight ago, and the reasons have only hardened.
They are carrying four quarterbacks: Tua Tagovailoa, Michael Penix Jr., Cooper Rush and undrafted rookie Jack Strand. Six days out, they have not named a Week 1 starter.
Penix’s situation explains it. He is coming back from a left ACL injury, was only recently cleared, and took his first full practice last week. Tagovailoa (released by Miami in the offseason) has taken the majority of the reps in the new offence by default rather than by decision. The current administration did not draft Penix and has not committed to him.
Four quarterbacks on a 53-man roster costs you a player somewhere else. Doing it because you cannot choose is different from doing it because you want optionality.
The defence lost its foundation piece.Jalon Walker tore his ACL in training camp and is out for the season. Atlanta drafted him to anchor the unit, and there is no replacement on the roster. At cutdown, they also released outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari and cornerback Cobee Bryant.
Prediction: 7-10. The four-game winning streak was real. The roster that produced it is not intact, and a team that does not know its quarterback in September is not a division winner.
Predicted Order of Finish
1. New Orleans Saints — 9-8; division winners2. Tampa Bay Buccaneers — 9-8; wild card3. Carolina Panthers — 8-9;4. Atlanta Falcons — 7-10
Division odds: Buccaneers +200, Saints +265 to +275, Panthers +310 to +320, Falcons bunched in the middle.
Win totals across the division run from 8.5 down to 6.5. That two-game spread is the smallest in football, and it is small because nobody here is good, not because everybody is.
The Positions Worth Taking
New Orleans at +265 or better is the play. You are getting better than 2-to-1 on the team with the easiest schedule in the division, coming off a strong finish, in a race where nine wins is likely enough. Schedule strength is the most reliable forecaster of a surprise season and the least respected by the market.
Carolina at +310 is the second-best number, and it is close. A defending division champion at better than 3-to-1 is a price that only makes sense if you are certain Bryce Young regresses. Nobody is certain of that; the club itself has hedged by picking up the option without extending him.
Tampa Bay at +200 is short. Not wrong, just short. The Buccaneers are the most stable organisation here, and you are being asked to pay favourite prices in a division where the favourite wins nine games.
Pass on Atlanta. A team with four quarterbacks and no starter, having lost its best young defender for the season, is not a bet at any price in this division.
What Decides It
Whether the Saints’ schedule converts. New Orleans plays the softest run of games available to anyone in the division, and the injuries are front-loaded; Tyson returns around Week 5. September and October are their entire season.
Baker Mayfield’s availability. Tampa Bay’s floor is the highest in the division, and it collapses immediately if Mayfield misses time, because the alternative is an undrafted rookie.
Bryce Young against 20.5 touchdowns. That number decides Carolina’s season and Carolina’s next three years.
When Atlanta names a quarterback. Naming one this week is recoverable. Still rotating in October is not.
A division where the favourite is priced at nine wins, the defending champion is the longest shot, and one team has four quarterbacks and no answer. Somebody has to win it. Take the team with the easiest schedule.
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