Saints Consensus Top Pick for NFC South in 2008

Surprise! All four of the major NFL magazines, Athlon, Lindy's, Pro-Football Weekly and Sporting News, picked the Saints to win the NFC South. It's a surprise to many as both the Panthers and Bucs have had success in recent times and have added good talent recently. The Panthers are a good team that had a lot of injuries in 2007. On top of that they gambled a bit in the draft and traded a 2009 1st round pick so they could get two 1st round picks, which they used on RB Jonathan Stewart and RT Jeff Otah. The Bucs are coming off of a 9-7 division title with pretty much the same team intact and some decent additions from free agency and the draft. OK, so the Falcons don't deserve to be in this conversation, but the last place team in the NFC South has won the next year in every year of it's existence so far. Should the Falcons be considered then? Hmmm