The NFC South is a punchline that needs no setup. Heading into Sunday's slate here in Week 10, all four teams have just three wins—and the Carolina Panthers are on pace to win their second straight division title, practically by default.
Today, they will be facing the New Orleans Saints at Caesars Superdome, and first place in the division is on the line.
While one of these teams will walk away with their fourth victory, one analyst doesn't see them winning even three more games after that for the rest of the campaign. John Brech at CBS Sports believes the eventual NFC South winner will fall bottom-backwards into the playoffs with a 6-11 record.
Breech writes:
There's a very real chance that the winner of this division ends up with a 6-11 record.
For that NOT to happen, the Panthers or Saints would have to go at least 4-5 down the stretch, and I'm not sure either team is capable of doing that. The Panthers and Saints actually play each other in Week 10, so one of those teams will be getting to four wins on Sunday. Even taking that into account, I'm not fully convinced we're going to see either one of them win seven games.
Yikes.
If this scenario comes to pass, it may mean that a far-superior team from the NFC North could wind up missing out on the playoffs, even with an 11-6 record.
The only good thing that could come out of that is if the NFL finally recognizes that it can no longer arbitrarily award playoff seeds to teams just for winning their own division. The seven best teams should be in the postseason for each conference, no matter where they're coming from geographically.
As for today's matchup, the Panthers may need a bit of luck to get past the Saints—who have won five of their last six meetings.
Follow @ThePanthersWire on Twitter/X for more Panthers content.
This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Analyst shares brutal prediction for NFC South ahead of Panthers' Week 10 matchup vs. Saints
