Here is the only highlight I'm going to give you from Panthers-Bucs, because, frankly, it's what you deserve for clicking on a blog about the NFC South, thereby incentivizing the continued existence of the division when it ought to be consigned to the dustbin of history, or, barring that, launched into the Sun. It's the game's final play, as chaotic and unsuccessful and poorly thought-out as the division itself.
That cinched a 16-14 Buccaneers victory on a soggy and sloppy late afternoon in Tampa, in which the Bucs won despite Baker Mayfield throwing his ninth pick in eight games. But Bryce Young donated an interception of his own, and Rico Dowdle lost a key fumble on an attempted flea flicker when he slipped on the wet grass.
The Bucs win guarantees that a team with a losing record will win the division, but we won't know which team that'll be yet. That's because while Tampa holds the two-team tiebreaker over Carolina, Carolina holds the potential three-team tiebreaker over Tampa and Atlanta, and wouldn't you know it? The Falcons can create a three-way, under-.500 tie with a win over New Orleans. That's right: The most consequential game of Sunday's early slate is the 6-11 Saints vs. the 7-9 Falcons, to decide which 8-9 team not playing in that game will win the division. NFC South fever! Catch it ... and die!
The tiebreaker situation creates some odd bedfellows, as Tampa needs the Falcons to lose to make the playoffs, which means rooting for New Orleans. "I never thought I'd see a day where I’m rooting for the Saints," LB Lavonte David said Saturday. Mayfield, who said earlier this season that "I do not like them," realized that there's an unlikely but possible outcome that still works for the Bucs: "A tie still gets us in."
The Panthers, meanwhile, will take a postseason any way they can get it.
“I mean, I could care less, man,” Panthers safety Nick Scott said of the criticism of an 8-9 NFC South team getting to host a playoff game. “A hat and a T-shirt [for winning the division] is a hat and a T-shirt."
To some extent, I blame the 17-game schedule for this. An 8-8 record, if not exactly "respectable," is at least aesthetically pleasing. 8-9 is unwieldy. It's unpleasant. And it forces us to pay attention to the NFC South for 18 whole weeks. I guess at least it's another paycheck for Fox's sixth-string broadcast crew.
The lucky NFC South winner will get either the Rams (if they win today) or the 49ers in the wild card round. The schedule's not out yet, but let's be real: it'll be the AFC South Memorial early-Saturday slot.
