Panthers could win the NFC South on Sunday. So should they watch the scoreboard?
The Carolina Panthers haven’t been in the serious scoreboard-watching business in December for a while. But that’s where they will find themselves Sunday, in the unique position of needing something else to happen 730 miles away.
Simply put, to win the NFC South on Sunday, two things must happen for the Panthers, and they both happen simultaneously, starting at 1 p.m.
First, Carolina (8-7) needs to upset Seattle (12-3) at home — the Seahawks, currently the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff race, are favored by 7.5 points. Second, Miami (6-9) needs to upset Tampa Bay (7-8) in a home game for the Dolphins — the Bucs are favored by 5.5 points.
With any other result — a Carolina loss OR a Tampa Bay win — the NFC South comes down to one last game. Then the Panthers would have to go to Tampa on Jan. 4 in a rematch of what we just saw Sunday, in that 23-20 happy-ending thriller for the Panthers, and beat the Bucs again.
With all that in mind, will Panthers head coach Dave Canales be getting regular scoring updates on the Tampa Bay game Sunday?
“I will not,” Canales said Monday. “We can’t approach it that way.... We’re trying to create consistency in our product of what we do on the field, game in and game out…. We have to approach it that way... We all have to be locked in.”
It’s an interesting quandary. Certainly Carolina wants to win. And the Panthers might. I think their chances of beating Seattle eclipse Miami’s shot at beating the Bucs.
Even more so than Tampa Bay, the Dolphins are free fallin’ (shout-out to the late Tom Petty). They have just changed quarterbacks and may fire their head coach. The Panthers, in the meantime, have already shown an innate ability to play up — or down — to their level of competition. This is a Carolina team that can beat the Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers — and also lose to the New Orleans Saints twice.
So to think through all the options: Let’s say Carolina is down by three scores against Seattle in the fourth quarter. At that point do you consider sitting your starters, taking the potential of a key injury off the table while knowing that your best chance to make the playoffs at that point is to win at Tampa Bay?
I would. Bryce Young would be coming out of a “17 points down midway through the fourth quarter” game faster than you could say “Fa-la-la-la-la.”
But Canales said he won’t. Probably.
“I don’t envision us doing that,” Canales said when I presented him that hypothetical on Monday during his news conference. “Again, that’s a conversation that (general manager) Dan (Morgan) and I have to have philosophically, about how we’re approaching this. But…. all of these reps are so valuable…. As we continue to grow together as a team, every series matters…. All of our focus has to be right here, right now on the Seahawks.”
Maybe so, and that’s what he should say. But it’s naive to believe that the fans in the stadium — as well as some of the Panthers’ operational people — won’t know what’s going on in Florida. Even if the Panthers turn the “out-of-town scores” portion of the scoreboard off at Bank of America Stadium — that would be silly — it wouldn’t matter. Everybody has a phone. Everybody will know.
Of course, beating Seattle and former Carolina quarterback Sam Darnold has to be Job 1. But I would argue that Job 2 is being smart with a football team that — more likely than not — is going to have to go to Tampa on Jan. 4 and sweep the series to break a playoff drought that extends to 2017.
All this reminds me of the end-of-season, will-they-make-the-playoffs Panthers scenario I most remember after 31 years of covering this team. This was in the last game of the 1999 season. Steve Beuerlein was Carolina’s quarterback. George Seifert was its coach, and things hadn’t all gone bad for him yet.
Carolina was 7-8. So was Green Bay, and the two teams were locked into a multi-team battle for the last playoff spot via some complicated tiebreaker scenarios. They weren’t playing each other, either. But they were playing at the same time, just like this coming week.
The Panthers needed a lot of things to happen that day to make their longshot come in. The wildest one was that they had to beat New Orleans by at least 19 more points than Green Bay beat Arizona (if the two teams both won). The Packers had an 18-point edge in a key tiebreaker.
This led to one of the darndest games I’ve ever seen in the Panthers’ stadium. Beuerlein threw five TD passes as Carolina kept trying to pour it on. The Panthers were up 45-7 and went for a fourth-and-10 on their own 39 in the fourth quarter, because they still weren’t winning by enough. They didn’t make it, either.
The Panthers sideline was very aware of what the Packers were doing, and Green Bay was scoring just as fast and furiously as the Panthers were. Eventually, Green Bay won 49-24. Carolina won 45-13 and didn’t overcome that 18-point margin (and the Packers ultimately didn’t go to the playoffs either, because something else went wrong for them).
Trivia question about that day: Do you know who the New Orleans quarterback was on that day?
Jake Delhomme.
Delhomme impressed Carolina’s then-GM Marty Hurney with the way he was competing while still down 38 points (he scrambled for a late touchdown). A few years later, the Panthers signed him. A few months after that, Carolina was in the Super Bowl.
Anyway, I digress. On that day (Jan. 2, 2000), it made all sort of sense to micro-monitor what was happening in another game. On Sunday, it’s also going to be essential, whether Canales admits it or not.
But if it doesn’t work out, Carolina gets one more chance. The Panthers have two more Sundays to try to get this right. If they do, their reward is a home playoff game in mid-January.
For the Panthers and their long-suffering fans, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. But get back to me Sunday.
This story was originally published December 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
