NFL Draft Review: NFC South Winners and Losers

Ken Kelly

rodgers

The NFC South is known for providing different division champions nearly every year. With explosive offenses in Atlanta and New Orleans, a dominant defense in Carolina and an up and coming team in Tampa Bay, there’s no shortage of talent to be found in this division. In an interesting twist, every team outside of Atlanta added a prominent wide receiver in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft with Brandin Cooks heading to New Orleans, Kelvin Benjamin going to the Panthers and Mike Evans taking his talents to Tampa Bay. Let’s re-examine this quartet of teams and cover the veteran winners and losers from the NFC South.

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Winners

Drew Brees, QB NO

The Saints addition of Cooks helps ease the void left by the departure of Darren Sproles earlier this off-season. Sean Payton will undoubtedly fall in love with the open field talent of Cooks and use him in a multitude of creative ways. With Kenny Stills, Cooks and a sleeper rookie in Brandon Coleman, the Saints receiving corps finally finds itself with an infusion of youth. As such, Brees has an offense set up for success throughout the duration of his illustrious career.

Josh McCown, QB TB

I have my doubts about just how successful McCown can be and I firmly believe his numbers last year were more indicative of just how good the Bears’ skill players (and Marc Trestman) were. However, when you have Vincent Jackson, Mike Evans and Austin Seferian-Jenkins (all of whom are over 6’5″), it’s hard not to get at least a little excited about just what the Bucs are going to be able to do in the red zone. McCown will also have a healthy Doug Martin back, so he’ll have to play well to hold off a supposedly re-emerging Mike Glennon.

Levine Toilolo, TE ATL

With Tony Gonzalez gone and the Falcons failing to address the tight end position through the draft, Toilolo finds himself with little to no competition in the race to be the new starting tight end in Atlanta. Toilolo has been inconsistent thus far, but this will be a golden opportunity for him this year. If he doesn’t produce, the Falcons will most likely look for a replacement in next year’s draft, so the time is now for Toilolo.

Jerricho Cotchery, WR CAR

It’s hard to say anyone in the Panthers’ receiving corps was really a winner, but Cotchery looks like he’ll be a starter this year, even if it’s by default. The Panthers added Benjamin, but most expected to see more activity via the draft or free agency given their lack of depth and quality players at the position. It’s going to be interesting to see just what this does to Cam Newton moving forward as no pass catcher outside of Greg Olsen is really going to scare any defense this season. If he has an off year numbers-wise, it may be a good time to buy low on him a year from now.

Losers

Nick Toon, WR NO

You could lump Joe Morgan in here as well, I suppose. Kenny Stills should still be on the same path to playing time, but the addition of Cooks puts a bit of a pin in the balloon of some of the other youngsters on the New Orleans roster. Toon hasn’t been able to really turn the corner for the Saints and it just seems like there are too many mouths to feed at this point. Drew Brees is great, but he can’t throw more than one football at a time.

Tim Wright, TE TB

Wright actually graded out pretty well by most measuring sticks out there last season, but he’s obviously not a favorite of the new regime. If bringing in Brandon Myers wasn’t enough, the Bucs really destroyed his value by drafting Austin Seferian-Jenkins early in the second round. Wright had promise, but he’s just buried on the depth chart and really needs a change of scenery to re-emerge on the dynasty landscape.

Jacquizz Rodgers, RB ATL

There is arguably no bigger loser from the draft than Rodgers and that goes for any division, not just this one.. The prevailing thought in most dynasty circles is Devonta Freeman is likely the heir apparent to Steven Jackson as the featured back in Atlanta. At the very least, he’s certainly looking like a huge upgrade on Rodgers. As such, it’s really tough to see him having any type of value in dynasty leagues.

Bobby Rainey, RB TB

The Bucs brought in Charles Sims, who is supposed to be a poor man’s Matt Forte. While Sims isn’t really a threat to Doug Martin just yet, he’s certainly an upgrade (at least in theory) on Rainey and Mike James. Sims is a really good pass catcher, so could have value almost immediately in dynasty leagues. Unfortunately, the other backs probably had their best run in dynasty leagues in spot duty last season.

Kenjon Barner, RB CAR

The running back corps of the Panthers continues to be a total mess in terms of fantasy production. To make matters worse, the Panthers added Tyler Gaffney to add to the group consisting of DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart, Mike Tolbert and Barner. It’s really tough to say which back is hurt the most if Gaffney makes the team, but it’s likely going to be Barner. The only plus side to owning any of these running backs is the fact this team will absolutely have to run the football next season since they have nothing but question marks all over the receiving corps after the loss of Steve Smith this off-season.

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ken kelly