NFC South Division Odds Pre and Post NFL Draft

The 2026 NFL Draft officially concluded Saturday, April 25th, and teams are working on integrating the newly acquired rookies into their culture and system. After any draft, you see a lot of shake-up, as teams can vastly change seemingly overnight depending on how good or poorly their draft went.

Every team in the NFC South seemingly had a successful draft (though we won’t really know until we see the players on the field). Atlanta didn’t have a 1st-round pick this year, but managed to cover all of their positional needs in the following rounds, most notably picking up Avieon Terrell, brother of veteran Falcons CB AJ Terrell.

The Panthers took more of a best-available approach, while still picking up players at needed positions. They got some really solid pickups in the first 2 rounds especially, as they’re building from the inside out, picking up players on both sides of the line.

New Orleans went heavy on drafting exterior guys, going with 3 wide receivers, 1 tight end, and 2 secondary players, as they look to provide improved options for young QB Tyler Shough. Tampa Bay followed Atlanta’s approach of picking up players from all of their positional needs. They had as even of a split as you can have with an odd number of picks, going with 4 defensive players, and 3 offensive players, though they went defense-heavy in the earlier rounds.

While it’s fun to see what analysts around the NFL have to say about the draft from a “grading” standpoint, a lot of it is still opinionated. Let’s take a look at what has changed from the sportsbooks’ view in the NFC South, as we see what each team’s odds were to win the division prior to the draft, and what they are now post-draft. 

Pre-Draft (Odds from DraftKings February 9th)

Post Draft (Odds from DraftKings April 28th)

Final Thoughts

As you can see, with the Draft behind us now, there has already been a big shift in the odds for the NFC South. From a percentage standpoint, the Saints took the biggest leap, gaining more than 6% in their likelihood of winning the division, followed by the Panthers, who gained over 4% in their likelihood to win the division, while the Bucs and Falcons lost some favorability.

I think the big reason for the Falcons losing as much as they did was due to the fact that they weren’t very aggressive in this draft and didn’t have a first-round pick. With free agency still very much alive, as teams can sign unrestricted free agents until July 22nd, it will be fascinating to see if there are any changes to the current odds, and how things might shake out as we get closer to the season beginning.