Eight months ago, a first-time NFL head coach was introduced in Atlanta – the beginning, it appeared at the time, of a long and intense period of rebuilding.  “We have all sorts of challenges ahead,” Dan Quinn, the former Seattle defensive coordinator taking over a team that had won a combined 10 games the previous two seasons, said on his first day of work as the Falcons’ new coach.  A few months later, the Carolina Panthers were whipsawed by a series of training-camp body shots: star wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin suffered a season-ending injury, and quarterback Cam Newton’s preseason rivalry with cornerback Josh Norman erupted into a full-on brawl. “Hit me like that again,” the franchise quarterback chirped at the team’s best defensive player, “and you’ll know something.”  These were examples, on full public display, of what seemed like two teams in peril – organizations with talent, sure, but likely to be overcome by problems as, like in 2014, a team stumbled toward the NFC South championship, won last year by the 7-8-1 Panthers.  Instead, during this young season, the Panthers and Falcons are each 4-0, two of the NFL’s six remaining unbeaten teams. The NFC South, predicted to be the league’s weakest division, is – of course, considering the unpredictable nature of the NFL regular season – the only one with two undefeated representatives.  “Nobody knows football,” a joking Ronde Barber said, and it almost seems true. If a 16-year NFL veteran (who played 11 of his seasons in the NFC South) who’s now a Fox analyst has trouble predicting who will be good or bad in the NFL, how does anyone have a chance?  Then again, as Barber pointed out, the signs were perhaps there for Carolina and Atlanta to execute quick turnarounds. Quinn took over a team that, given its talented offensive personnel, underachieved the previous two seasons because of problems on defense.  That unit was the NFL’s worst in 2014, when Quinn was guiding the Seahawks’ defense to its second consecutive Super Bowl. Barber, who will provide analysis of the Falcons’ game this week against Washington at the Georgia Dome, said that despite the problems, Quinn didn’t need a full overhaul of Atlanta’s defense. He rather tweaked it in his own style – a simplified scheme with a 4-3 defensive front and three-man coverages that looked so familiar in Seattle. He also added several free-agent linebackers and selected defensive players with Atlanta’s first two draft picks. Results, anyway, have come quickly.  It hasn’t hurt that receiver Julio Jones is healthy and dominant and, with the revamped attack of former Washington offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, quarterback Matt Ryan through four games is on pace for the best total quarterback rating of his career.  “I’m buying them,” Barber said of the Falcons, “a little more than I would’ve admitted before the season.”  Carolina’s changes have, perhaps surprisingly, been minor as well. Rather than panicking after Benjamin tore his anterior cruciate ligament, Panthers Coach Ron Rivera instead trusted Newton to stay the course, relying on a maturity and ability to lean on his teammates that had been absent in past seasons.  Earlier in Newton’s career, the quarterback dwelled on his own mistakes and had trouble trusting others as he trusted himself. Even in pregame production meetings, Barber said, Newton often verbally wandered, preferring to discuss things as they affected Newton and not necessarily the team. Now, Barber said, Newton’s focus no longer seems to be a blind spot. He shares bigger-picture ideas and seems more trusting of teammates – even without Benjamin to lead Carolina’s receiving corps. The Panthers have had a different leading receiver in three of their four games; Newton has learned to rely on tight end Greg Olsen and trust unexpected targets, including Brenton Bersin, the undrafted receiver out of Wofford who led Carolina in receiving this past Sunday.  “There’s moments in games,” said Barber, who has been in the booth for three of the Panthers’ four games this season, “where I know for a fact before he would’ve done the self-centric thing and tried to make plays on his own.  “Now he plays within the concept of the offense and looks for help down the field. He still has the ability to do it himself, but there is definite growth with him as football player.”  Even the confrontation with Norman, whose four interceptions leads the NFL, seems not to have torn apart the Panthers’ team chemistry. Talk around Charlotte is that, if anything, the run-in perhaps galvanized the team and taught it what not to do.  “This team is tough,” said Jordan Gross, the Panthers’ former Pro Bowl offensive tackle. “If you’re tough and stupid, that’s dangerous. If you’re tough and smart, you can be dangerous in a good way.”  There’s a question, though, making its way through the football facilities of Atlanta and Carolina, and with each win it intensifies: Is the impressive start real or one of those classic early-season mirages? The combined record of the Panthers’ four opponents is 4-12, and the Falcons have so far victimized the NFC East – the new top contender for weakest division in football – and last Sunday crushed the Houston Texans, they of the ongoing quarterback troubles.  Atlanta’s schedule seems to be one of the league’s most favorable; it isn’t much of a gamble to see the Falcons starting the season with nine wins or more. In fact, the first team the Falcons will play with a winning record through Week 4 is, well, Carolina – which it’ll face in Week 14, followed by a rematch that could decide the division two weeks later (the Saints and Buccaneers are each 1-3).  The Panthers will learn about themselves far quicker: After this week’s bye, Carolina will travel to Seattle on Oct. 18. The Panthers haven’t beaten the Seahawks since 2007, and Coach Ron Rivera is as interested as anyone in learning about his team and its actual viability as a contender.  “At the end of the day, if you want to be the champs you’ve got to beat the champs,” Rivera told reporters Monday. “So yeah, do we have some big games coming up? Absolutely. Are they tests? 100 percent. Are we going to approach them any different than we’ve approached any other game we’ve played? No, because they’re all important. If we start picking and choosing which games are more important, then we’re going to lose sight of what the objective is, and that’s to win them all.”  Rivera, the normally mild-mannered fifth-year coach, became uncharacteristically intense when the topic came up. Time, he pointed out, will reveal the truth about his team — and about the Falcons, too. But in the meantime there has been almost nothing more impressive so far this season. Or, at least, almost nothing more surprising – not that the surprise is Rivera’s concern.  “Our record says we’re 4-0; we’re 4-0,” Rivera said, occasionally jabbing the lectern with a finger. “Our schedule says these are who we play, so there’s nothing I can do, and you can’t please everybody. But most certainly I’m not going to apologize for being 4-0.”
A year after putting a losing team into the playoffs, the NFC South flaunts two potential postseason-worthy teams.