In the NFL, teams go from worst to first seemingly every year. But the AFC South as a whole can go from worst to first in terms of overall quality.
For the past few years, the AFC south was seen as the bottom division of the NFL barrel. It’s seemed to be either Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck’s division or the Houston Texans defense and whoever they trotted out at quarterback’s.
But with Luck only now returning from his year-long shoulder injury in 2017, the division saw a bit of a changing of the guard with the Jacksonville Jaguars taking home the divisional crown a season ago.
While this changing of the guard was a nice change of pace, it is entirely possible that it’s only temporary. The Jaguars finished 10-6 while the second-place Tennessee Titans finished 9-7 but defeated the Jaguars in both meetings. Both teams made the playoffs, so an extended run with the division for the Jaguars isn’t impossible, but isn’t likely either.
The fact that the third-place Texans and last-place Colts both finished 4-12, it’s easy to see why fans and the national media brushed this division off, even with two new playoff teams. The Texans brought a ray of hope when it came to excitement, only for that ray to fade into the night with injuries to defensive end J.J. Watt and, later, quarterback DeShaun Watson.
It was the same old story for the AFC South.
This year, however, the AFC South should be the league’s most intriguing after years of being, for lack of better terms, the most boring and irrelevant. The division should do a complete 180 during the 2018 season.
Sure, the division might not feature the best teams like the NFC South, and of course the NFC East is always the NFC East, but here are five reasons why the hungry mouths of the AFC’s South will make up the NFL’s most interesting for 2018.