Tom Pleso joined now by our friend Sarah Walsh.
All right, Sarah, the off season, at
least the spring is complete. We're a few weeks
out from training camps here. Give me a few
thoughts. A few takeaways you had from the NFC
South maybe starting us off in Carolina. All right
, let's start there in Carolina. Tom and the
most obvious thing there is that the Panthers were willing
to back up the Braves truck to put Bryce Young
in a position to be successful. And for that
quarterback that position might just be being upright after being
sacked 62 times a season ago. Second most ever
for a rookie only behind David Carr. They went
out and spent more than 100 and$50 million on
two guards and Damian Lewis and Robert Hunt and this
is a Carolina team that had seven picks in the
draft. They weren't using any of them on an
offensive lineman. And what that tells me is this
isn't about building for the future. This is,
hey, we want to build a fortress in front
of young and we want to do it right now
with veteran guys, guys that are among the best
in the league. So that's what they went out
and did. And of course, Dave Canalis known
for building up quarterbacks. He just did it here
in Tampa with Baker Mayfield and his resurgence, he
did it out in Seattle with Smith. The belief
is that all of this is putting the pieces around
Bryce Young. It was obviously a very rough rookie
season for him. Now, does all of this
take a Panthers team that went two and 15 a
year ago and catapult them into the playoffs. Uh
, that would be a pretty tough leap. But
you have to believe that they took gigantic strides physically
that you will see this off season to make the
Panthers and Bryce Young in a much better position next
season. Falcons also have a new head coach,
Raheem Morris back in Atlanta. What's your biggest takeaway
from their off season? Here's what I find really
interesting about the Falcons and you guys were just talking
about the Cowboys on this Insider show when you think
about the teams that are under pressure to win right
now to make the big jump. It's always the
Cowboys, right? It's the Jets right now with
Aaron Rodgers. It's been the Bills a lot lately
with the thought that they're in that window. Well
, Raheem Morris might be a first year head coach
in Atlanta. It certainly does not feel that way
. He had that interim title back in 2020 it
Atlanta, he's got experience. He's very well known
around those parts there in Flowery Branch. But as
soon as they went out and signed Kirk Cousins,
this is not about the future you put pen to
paper and a$180 million contract that is for this
Falcons team to win right now to be in the
postseason right now. They have been in a drought
there in Atlanta six years without going to the playoffs
. And it's often thought that well, if it
was just this one key piece, if it was
one more win, they would have slipped into the
NFC South division crown and taken that. And the
only thing holding them back was a quarterback. So
again, this was not about the future. This
is a Falcons team that I think sneakily the NFC
South doesn't get talked, talked about a lot right
now, I would say, but I think the
Falcons are in that group of teams that are really
under pressure to win and win immediately this year,
past couple of years, the Bucks are probably the
team we've talked about the least in that division.
All they do is go out and keep winning division
titles. What's your takeaway off their off season?
Well, I'm glad you bring that up because as
soon as Kirk Cousins was signed to the Atlanta Falcons
, the narrative is the Falcons are going to win
the division. Let's go back a year ago and
they get a Derek Carr in New Orleans and right
away it was, the Saints are going to win
the division and who has quietly won the division if
that's possible. But I can tell you, it
is possible to quietly win it because the Bucks have
been doing it year after year after year, three
straight division crowns. The feeling in Tampa is that
they get no respect. As soon as Tom left
, it was all over and then it was another
team that was going to sneak in there and no
one has been able to do this. And certainly
this is opinion if you feel like they don't get
respect and the Bucks will say, they don't care
what anybody thinks outside the locker room. We're happy
being the underdogs. We're happy having the chip on
our shoulders. But it's funny to think about this
team having a chip on their shoulder. They're the
only, let me give you some cold hard Bucks
facts here. This is not opinion. They are
the only team in the NFC that has now gone
to the playoffs four consecutive years in a row right
now. And since 2020 they have the third most
wins in the NFL. It's, they're not really
thought of that way. And if you go back
in very recent history, a year ago, they're
about 4.5 minutes away from potentially going to a conference
champ game 4.5 minutes left on the clock and they
were within a score of the Detroit Lions up there
in Detroit and they feel like those same pieces are
there. Jason light doesn't go out and sign flashy
players. What he does do is go out and
sign his own players. And those players have been
very good for the last couple of years. So
don't be surprised if that could continue again, but
they're happy to not have the pressure on them.
You can talk about anybody else and they'll just quietly
go to work and we have and we probably will
. Thank you very much, Sarah. Look forward
to talking to you again very soon.