What's Next in the Brutal NFC South?

New Orleans Saints fans remember quite well the time in 2010 when their team was forced to play a postseason game on the road against the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks.

The Seahawks won the NFC West that season with a losing record, hosted 11-5 New Orleans and promptly walked away with an improbable 41-36 playoff victory. Home-field advantage played an obvious role in the victory.

The NFL, you see, rewards teams for winning their respective divisions with a home playoff game, regardless of record. Yet, you can rest assured that the Saints—and their fans—were more than a little miffed that they had to travel to face a team that achieved four fewer wins.

Therefore, there may be some sense of irony floating around the league if the Saints or any other NFC South team finds itself with a 7-9 or 8-8 record and hosting a team like Seattle in the postseason.

This is a very real possibility, as the NFC South is quickly shaping up to be the most disappointing division in 2014. No team in the division currently holds a winning record, and following Sunday's loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Saints currently sit in first place one game under .500.

	W-L-T	Div
New Orleans	4-5-0	2-1
Carolina	3-5-1	1-1
Atlanta	3-6	3-0
Tampa Bay	1-8	0-4

At this point, the 1-8 Tampa Bay Buccaneers appear to be the only team out of the divisional race. While Tampa has only three fewer wins than New Orleans and two fewer than the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers, the Buccaneers have just two divisional games remaining on their schedule.

Tough non-divisional games against the Cincinnati Bengals, Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers make it even less likely that the Buccaneers have a real shot in the division.

Of course, anything can happen in the NFC South this season.

Well, almost anything can happen. It is incredibly difficult to see the Saints, Panthers or Falcons emerging from the regular season with a first-round playoff bye. 

At this point, it doesn't seem extremely likely that one of these teams will even finish with a winning record.

The Saints would need to win five of the next seven games to finish the season above .500. Their next three opponents are the Bengals, Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers—three teams from a division where every team is above .500. 

The Saints also play each team in their division one more time, plus the Chicago Bears.

The Panthers, who play the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday, have four games within the division remaining. With that schedule, there is certainly room for Carolina to make up serious ground in the South.

However, the Panthers would also have to go 5-2 the rest of the way to finish with a winning record. An early-season tie with the Bengals allows them to finish 8-7-1 with five more wins. 

The Panthers play four of the next seven games on the road (including Monday night), so it won't be easy to finish above .500. Two of the home games are against NFC South opponents, and the last is a Week 16 matchup with the currently 6-3 Cleveland Browns.

Again, a winning record doesn't look promising. 

The Falcons, who actually won on Sunday (over the Buccaneers, of course), face three remaining divisional contests. They also have yet to play the Browns, Arizona Cardinals, Packers and Steelers.

It would require a 6-1 finish for Atlanta to end the season with a winning record.

An 8-8 record will likely be good enough for a team to win this division and to host one playoff game, but don't expect any wild-card teams or first-round byes out of the South.

New Orleans is currently in the best position to win the division record-wise. However, if quarterback Drew Brees plays as inconsistently as he did Sunday (two interceptions and a fumble), the Saints are going to have a very difficult time with the tough remaining schedule.

Carolina is actually the team in position to make up the most ground because of their four remaining NFC South matchups. If the Panthers can win all four and nothing else, the team would finish 5-1 within the division and 7-8-1 overall. To do so, the Panthers defense will have to perform better than it has (26.2 points per game allowed) to this point.

Atlanta, which is 3-0 in the NFC South, has to win all three divisional games plus two others to finish at 8-8. Only one of those divisional games is at home. The Falcons might need a miracle. 

Any way you look at it, teams in the NFC South have not played consistent, winning football so far in this 2014 season. The first one to do so over the remaining seven weeks will likely have the best shot at getting to 8-8 and, most likely, win a division crown.