The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have done a lot of running around over the season’s first eight weeks just to end up right back where they started. 

Which is, as the favorites to win the NFC South division. 

The Bucs were overwhelming favorites to win their division before the season began. Unfortunately, the early portion of the campaign couldn’t have been any worse for Tampa Bay. 

Tampa Bay dropped its first four games and looked dead in the water. The Bucs looked like a team more likely to earn the first pick in next year’s draft than one that could turn things around and make the playoffs. 

To make matters worse, franchise quarterback Baker Mayfield was out with a dislocated thumb, leaving the offense in the hands of undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels. 

Daniels would lead the Bucs to a surprise upset of the Dallas Cowboys to improve to 1-4, but any hope and optimism that win provided was gone the following week after the team blew a 16-3 fourth-quarter lead before losing in overtime to the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

The Bucs season looked lost again at 1-5. 

However, in the weak NFC South, no team is ever really out of it. 

Mayfield returned from his injury, and the Bucs thrashed the first-place Carolina Panthers 43-13 and followed with a 16-0 shutout of the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. 

At 3-5, Tampa Bay is only a half game out of first place and once again appears to be the favorite to win the division. 

ESPN debated whether the Bucs are once again the team to beat in the NFC South. In its Week 8 overreactions article, the belief that Tampa Bay will win the South was determined to be “not an overreaction.”

Dan Graziano believes that, since someone has to win the NFC South, the Bucs have as good a shot as anyone.

Graziano cites Tampa Bay as being the only team in the division with a positive points differential, and the Bucs being 2-0 in division games as the main reasons to believe they are the favorites to win the South.

Graziano made the point to say that none of the other teams in the division pulled away while the Bucs were going through all their issues over the first six weeks.

"Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION

"I checked again this morning. The rules still require each division to have at least one playoff team. There will be an NFC South champion hosting a playoff game this year. And the Buccaneers, who started the season 0-4, have now won three of their past four to get back into the race. They crushed Carolina a week ago, so they have the edge in that tiebreaker as well as the one with Atlanta.

"Tampa Bay is the only team in the division that has scored more points than it has given up so far this season. The Bucs were the preseason favorites, won the division four years in a row before last season and know how to do it. Again, somebody has to win this division, and the Bucs look like the best team in it since Week 5. Nobody ran away with it in the first four weeks, so the Bucs absolutely have a shot."

None of the four teams in the NFC South are clear favorites to win the division. Any of the teams could finish the season on top of the division, and it wouldn't surprise anyone.

Any of the teams could also finish in last place and it wouldn't surprise anyone.

Now that the four teams are all bunched together in the standings once again, I believe the Bucs should be considered the favorite.

They are the most talented team, and Tampa's defense has established itself as one of the NFL's best. That gives the Bucs an identity, something that none of the other three teams in the division have.

The other NFC South teams had their chances to bury the Bucs, but they didn't.

Now, the Bucs are right back to where they were at the start of the season:

Favorites to win the NFC South