Bad calls, bad plays, bad loss: Now Panthers have one last-ditch chance left

Georgia …

Georgia on my mind …

The Carolina Panthers’ postseason fate now comes down to a game they won’t play, in a city 250 miles away from Charlotte. Every Panthers player, coach and fan now has to root for the Atlanta Falcons to beat the New Orleans Saints in a 1 p.m. game that will decide the NFC South championship and undoubtedly draw massive TV ratings in the Carolinas.

If Atlanta wins — and the Falcons are at home and favored by 3.5 points — the Panthers still make the postseason and will also host a playoff game in Charlotte next weekend either Saturday, Sunday or Monday. If New Orleans wins, Tampa Bay is in the playoffs and the Panthers will meet Monday, clean out their lockers and go home for the winter, disappointed.

The Panthers (8-9) put themselves in this precarious position by losing 16-14 to Tampa Bay on a soggy Saturday afternoon in Florida, leaving themselves to the fickle nature of fate and hoping to squeak in through a back door.

It’s an ugly method, really, similar to entering a fancy party through the service entrance while wearing a ripped T-shirt and cargo shorts and tracking mud into the house.

But still, the playoffs are the playoffs, and this is the only way open to that party that Carolina has left. Either way, an 8-9 team is going to represent the NFC South, which doesn’t speak well of this division.

It came down to a game in Georgia because Carolina couldn’t get it done in Florida against a team that had lost seven of its previous eight games. The Panthers fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter, never caught up and once again looked anemic on offense (19 yards rushing for the entire game!) for long stretches.

It didn’t help that Panthers coach Dave Canales made an egregious call in the fourth quarter, down 16-7, trying a flea-flicker on a first-and-10 at the Tampa Bay 20 on a rainy, slippery day.

Sure enough, Rico Dowdle slipped (again), botched the pitchback (which Bryce Young tried to pick up rather than immediately dive on, unfortunately channeling Cam Newton in the Super Bowl) and the Bucs recovered. Carolina still scored a late touchdown on a Bryce Young throw to Jalen Coker to cut the deficit to two, but Tampa Bay made a key first down, ran almost all of the clock out, and that was that.

Canales defended the flea-flicker call on a wet field after the game. “An aggressive call,” he said. “… I liked the call. I liked the opportunity that it presented us right there in the red zone to take advantage of it, and we didn’t get that done. He just slipped, that’s all.”

Young said he should have made sure he recovered Dowdle’s resulting fumble on the pitchback. “I think probably natural instinct was to try to pick it up and (that) wasn’t what happened,” he said. “Obviously in hindsight, the ball touched my hands. It should end there, so I take all the ownership for that.”

It also didn’t help that several key officiating calls went against the Panthers. I don’t like blaming the refs for anything — it’s usually a cop-out used by disgruntled fans or players — but in this case the broadcast crew’s criticism of three different calls against the Panthers was fierce, and I would agree with it.

The officiating, for whatever reason, tilted against Carolina in a critical part of the game and may have cost them at least three points, assuming Ryan Fitzgerald could have made a shorter field goal rather than the 54-yarder he had to attempt after an erroneous whistle following a screen play that turned into a backward pass recovered by Dowdle (with a lot of running room in front of him) cost the Panthers at least seven yards. Referee Brad Allen later told a pool reporter that “the Panthers could have had a choice to replay the down” on the play where Dowdle lost yardage. Canales didn’t want to talk specifically about officiating calls after the game.

The other two calls that ESPN announcers repeatedly referenced and criticized in their broadcast were a play where tight end Tommy Tremble had his helmet ripped off by a Tampa Bay defender, with no flag, and an offensive pass interference on Tetairoa McMillan that nullified a 31-yard gain for the Panthers. Said Allen, the referee: “The covering official saw that the receiver created separation more than one yard downfield, which by rule is illegal and is offensive pass interference.”

But nevertheless, even with the controversial calls, Carolina needed to play better, and just didn’t. The Panthers had a chance late, down only two points, but couldn’t hold Tampa Bay without a first down on the Bucs’ final possession. Now Carolina has to rely on the Falcons to do the job the Panthers couldn’t do.

If the Panthers do make the playoffs, though, they will make no apologies for 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, and this game is all about getting into the dance. And once you’re in the playoffs, anything can happen.”

As for Saturday’s game: Carolina had all sorts of reasons for losing it besides the officiating, so don’t just blame that.

I think the Panthers are still trying to tackle Baker Mayfield, who looked like vintage Michael Vick with the way he slipped through one would-be sack after another. Mayfield is now 6-1 against the Panthers in his career. Tampa Bay’s Chase McLaughlin also went 3 for 4 on field goals, while Carolina’s Ryan Fitzgerald went 0 for 1.

Now, onto the Falcons-Saints game. New Orleans rookie quarterback Tyler Shough won’t have a couple of his key weapons due to injury — wide receiver Chris Olave and running back Alvin Kamara. But Shough has already burned Carolina twice before this season — if the Panthers could have beaten the Saints even once in two tries, they wouldn’t be in this position. “We’ll all be pulling for the Saints tomorrow,” Mayfield said.

Atlanta, though, has running back Bijan Robinson, who is a star, and is coming off a big win over the L.A. Rams.

It’s impossible to know what will happen.

But we know one thing for sure:

The Panthers did this to themselves.

This story was originally published January 3, 2026 at 9:36 PM.

Scott Fowler

The Charlotte Observer

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Columnist Scott Fowler has written for The Charlotte Observer since 1994 and has earned 26 APSE awards for his sportswriting. He hosted The Observer’s podcast “Carruth,” which Sports Illustrated once named “Podcast of the Year.” Fowler also conceived and hosted the online series and podcast “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” which featured 1-on-1 interviews with NC and SC sports icons and was turned into a book. He occasionally writes about non-sports subjects, such as the 5-part series “9/11/74,” which chronicled the forgotten plane crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974. Support my work with a digital subscription