What are the unfinished business for the four teams in the NFC South?

We take a look at the four teams in the division to find out what they have left to do in the remainder of the offseason

After the bulk of the free agency and the Draft 2022the teams of the NFL They have defined, to a large extent, their templates for the following season. However, there is still time to polish the last details.

Template gaps, deep questions, and extra-sports issues are among the pending tasks for most teams in the leaguewhile work began on the off-season programs.

Following with the NFC Southwe take a tour of the eight divisions of the NFL to know what the pending tasks are for each franchise.

Put together a game plan around Desmond Ridder

Although it was a bit of a surprise that a club so in need of a long-term solution at quarterback would wait until the third round of the 2022 Draft to bet on one, it’s no coincidence that the Falcons chose one with Ridder’s qualities, a quarterback with a very similar toolkit to Marcus Mariota, for now listed as a starter for the start of the season. We’re not fooling anyone when we say that Mariota’s chances of becoming that final answer are truly minuscule. The last time he was considered a starting quarterback, he went 2-4 before giving up the job in 2019. There’s no guarantee Ridder will be the answer, either, but he’ll get a chance to start games in 2022. If Atlanta really wants to get a genuine evaluation of Cincinnati’s product, it needs to put together a plan that accentuates its strengths and hides its weaknesses. Otherwise, any analysis will always be incomplete.

Define if Matt Corral is a viable option as an alternative to Sam Darnold

After putting the chips in Deshaun Watson as a possible future franchise quarterback, Carolina was left empty-handed this offseason. Well, not completely empty: Darnold returns, along with Corral, who arrives from Ole Miss via draft. Unlike Mariota, Darnold has –still– a better outlook for the future, but not by much. It’s no exaggeration to say that this is his last chance to prove that he can be a steady starter in this league. Like Ridder, Corral is also not a certainty. The question lies in what will be the circumstances for a possible Corral debut, as an emergent in a moment of trouble, or part of a thought and planned process? For the latter to happen, which would obviously be the best possible scenario for the Panthers, it’s clear the quarterback needs to have earned the club’s trust. Easy to say, but the last time the team bet on a third-round quarterback, it didn’t happen. Will Grier was drafted just six at-bats lower in 2019 than Corral was drafted in 2022, and he’s practically become a footnote.

Definitively clear your situation under the salary cap

The 2022 season hasn’t even started yet, and the Saints project to be almost $70 million over the salary cap in 2023. That’s after an offseason that started about $70 million over the salary cap this year. And that’s after an offseason last year, in which they started about $100 million over the 2021 salary cap. How did they do it? Well, it basically boils down to not being able to re-sign key players, like Marcus Williams and Terron Armstead, and pushing charges against future salary caps. At some point, the Saints need to figure out a way to clean up their finances, pay the bills they owe, and enter an offseason with enough room to re-sign priority free agents and bring in outside help without too much concern. This year, New Orleans opened up almost $111 million of space, thinking about the possibility of acquiring Watson, and then part of that was spent on Tyrann Mathieu and Jarvis Landry, which is fine. But being able to draw from a broader pool of talent will certainly help the club more.

Finding/developing a genuine successor for Tom Brady

Brady’s fleeting retirement lasted just days, and from that moment on, the Bucs’ urgency to find a new starting quarterback ceased to be pressing. That doesn’t mean it’s no longer a necessity. The Bucs invested a second-round pick, the 64th overall pick of 2021, in Florida’s Kyle Trask. However, quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen’s statement that Trask wasn’t ready to compete for second place on the Tampa Bay roster drew a lot of attention. No, he wasn’t talking about being ready to start games. He was talking about not being ready to compete against Mike Glennon — yes, Mike Glennon — to serve as the club’s first alternate behind Brady. Brady’s final goodbye has never been so imminent, especially after his post-career player plans were announced, leaving aside the changes of opinion, and if there were those who bet on Trask as the future of the franchise, the coach’s words They should feel like a bucket of cold water. For now, there’s no rush, but getting Trask ready to –at least– compete for a first-back job should be high on Tampa Bay’s list of priorities.