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The NFC South: The Atlanta Falcons, the Carolina Panthers, the New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Inside the NFL)

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As Jim Logan points out in the introduction to this Inside the NFL volume, the "NFC South" are the younger brothers of the NFL family. That is because when the league went from three divisions to four in 2002 the new divisions were the ones representing the South. But the oldest teams in the division, the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans (New Jersey/San Antonio/Baton Rouge) Saints have only been around since 1966 and 1967 respectively. That explains in part why collectively this division has produced one Super Bowl champion (pay attention to what in on page 4-5 and not the chart on page 42). But because these teams are relative newcomers to the NFL young fans will find that this book provides a solid introduction to the history of each team.

The teams are arranged in alphabetical order and for three of the four teams the stories are pretty similar, beginning with season after season of losing. The exception is the Carolina Panthers, but after their surprising initial success they had some dark years as well. Consequently for most of these team histories the emphasis is on coaches and key players. Young fans who already know about Michael Vick, Julius Peppers, Deuce McAllister, and Derrick Brooks will know find out about Steve Bartkowski, Kevin Greene, Chuck Muncie, and Lee Roy Selmon (I would think they already know about Archie Manning). The history of some of these teams is so short that it seems like every head coach they have ever had gets mentioned. These teams have played very few big games, but Logan accounts for most of them so that if you root for one of these teams and your father or somebody else starts going on about what happened to the Falcons in 1981 in the fourth quarter against the Dallas Cowboys you will have something to contribute to the conversation (assuming, for the sake of argument, they allow you to talk on the subject).

In the back of the book there is more evidence of how young these teams are in NFL terms. The Stat Stuff section includes Team Records, the seven Members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame that have played for these four teams (where Eric Dickerson, Earl Campbell and Jim Taylor all earned their places because of their accomplishments with other teams), and NFC South Career Leaders (through 2002). There is also a Glossary, a Time Line, and a list of books and sites on the web where young fans can go For More Information About the NFS South and the NFL, where Logan gets a two point PAT because there are books about each of the four teams so fans of any one of these four franchises can learn a whole lot more about them. There is a black & white photograph of older stars like Tommy Nobis and Tom Dempsey, and color photographs for more recent ones like Deion Sanders and Mike Alstott. Yes, this 2004 volume is slightly out of date already when it comes to where Muhsin Muhammad and Keyshawn Johnson are playing today, but the value here for young fans are the histories Logan provides for these four teams.