First place in the NFC South is up for grabs in Week 16 as the 7-7 Tampa Bay Buccaneers face the 7-7 Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium on Sunday, December 21. It is the first of two games in a three-week span between the two teams that still have a shot at the division title. The Buccaneers are trying to win their first NFC South crown in a run while the Panthers are seeking their first since 2015.
The Buccaneers lost their fifth game in six weeks last Thursday night to briefly fall out of first place in the division. Tampa Bay had a two-touchdown late early in the fourth quarter but Atlanta scored the game's last 15 points and walked off a 29-28 yards win on Zane Gonzalez field goal. The Buccaneers' defense was stung by its arch-nemesis, quarterback Kirk Cousins, once again as it surrendered a season-worst 476 yards of offense and 27 first downs. Tampa Bay's offense saw the simultaneous returns of wide receivers Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan from injured reserve, and that helped Baker Mayfield throw for 277 yards and two touchdowns, though he was sacked five times. Evans made an instant impact with six catches for 132 yards.
The Panthers assumed first place after the Bucs' loss to Atlanta but slid back into a tie with their own last-second defeat at the hands of the Saints in New Orleans. Carolina had a 10-point lead in the third quarter after Bryce Young's 32-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Coker, but the Saints' Tyler Shough matched that with a 12-yard strike to Chris Olave with 2:29 left in regulation to tie the game at 17-17. A key sack by Chase Young on the ensuing possession forced the Panthers to punt with a minute left and that was enough time for Shough to maneuver kicker Charlie Smyth into position for a 47-yard field goal. Just before that kick, Shough took a designed run up the middle aiming to set up a much longer field goal, but rookie safety Lathan Ransom was called for unnecessary roughness for his hit on the sliding quarterback and those 15 yards made things much easier for the Saints. Carolina's strong rushing attack accounted for 127 yards while Young was held to 163 yards on 15-of-24 passing.
The winner of Sunday's game will not clinch the division, since the two teams meet again in Week 18, but the victor will be alone in first place with just two games to play? Here are four major storylines and four head-to-head player battles to keep an eye on in Week 16 as the Bucs try to keep control of their own playoff destiny in Charlotte.
TOP STORYLINES
It All Comes Down to This – The Buccaneers and Panthers have identical 7-7 records but they have gotten their in very different ways. The favorite to win the division after claiming the last four NFC South crowns, the Buccaneers won their first three games and stood at 6-2 heading into its Week Nine bye. Since that break, however, the Bucs have won just one more and have suffered defeat in heartbreaking fashion on multiple occasions. The Panthers, coming off a 5-12 mark in Dave Canales' first year as the head coach in 2024, lost three of their first four but then ripped off three wins in a row to get back in the division hunt. Starting with a Week Eight loss to Buffalo, the Panthers have alternated winning and losing for their last seven outings, with impressive victories over Green Bay and the Los Angeles Rams along the way. However, with a chance to take over the driver's seat in the division in Week 15, they let the aforementioned game in New Orleans slip away. So no, no matter what the prognosticators thought at the beginning of the season or what the standings looked like midway through, here we are, with the Bucs and Panthers queued up to play twice within three weeks to see who is crowned the champs in 2025. The Buccaneers do head into these last three weeks with one advantage: If the two games against the Panthers result in a split, Tampa Bay only needs to beat the Dolphins in Week 17 to win the division. Even if Carolina also won that weekend against Seattle, the Bucs would take the top spot thanks to a one-game edge in record against common opponents.
Is This What We've Been Waiting For? – It finally happened in Week 15. For the first time ever, the Buccaneers were able to put Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan on the field for the first time. That was the dream the Bucs hatched in April when they drafted Egbuka in the first round out of Ohio State, but Godwin's delayed return from his 2024 injury, multiple injuries to Evans that cost him nine games and a preseason neck injury that put McMillan on ice until December kept delaying its realization. The union of those four did not produce a victory in its first outing, but the results were quite promising. The Bucs mixed and matched the four receivers throughout the night against Atlanta and they combined for 254 of the team's 277 passing yards and 26 of Baker Mayfield's 32 targets. Was that just the beginning. As first-year Offensive Coordinator Josh Grizzard gets more time to mastermind his plans for the four, could the Evans-Godwin-Egbuka-McMillan swarm be the thing that propels the Bucs to a strong finish to the season? That is definitely the outcome that the Buccaneers and their fans have been dreaming of for months.
Holding Up in Crunch Time – The Buccaneers had a 14-point lead on Atlanta in Week 15 with 13:34 left in regulation but one ill-timed interception thrown by Baker Mayfield, four third or fourth-down conversions in the waning minutes by the Falcons and a potential game-sealing completion to Egbuka that was just off-target allowed the Falcons to storm all the way back. Four days prior to that, the Bucs were tied with the Saints in the fourth quarter, 17-17, amid a driving rainstorm and had the ball just across midfield before a failed fourth-down pass attempt to Godwin on the sideline. Minutes later, the Tampa Bay pass rush swarmed all over quarterback Tyler Shough on a third down only to have the Sants passer somehow escape three defenders and dash 13 yards for what would prove to be the game-winning points. The Bucs nearly tied the game on Mayfield's pass to a wide-open Egbuka in the end zone on the next drive but the rookie couldn't hang on and the Bucs settled for a field goal. The unifying theme is that the Bucs have played well enough to win most weeks this season but whereas they consistently made the big plays in the fourth quarter while rushing out to a 6-2 start, those moments have escaped them in the second half of the season. Can they recapture that early magic that led to wins in the their first five games that were decided by three points or less? They may need it to win the NFC South once again.
Which Defense Can Get Off the Field? – Another unfortunate sequence in the Buccaneers' loss to the Falcons came on the final drive, when a Haason Reddick strip sack put Cousins into a third-and-28 nightmare. Cousins responded with a 14-yard sideline completion on third down and a 21-yard strike on fourth-and-28, and not long after Gonzalez was walking it off. Atlanta converted on five of 11 third-down tries and that one fourth-down attempt, and now the Buccaneers' defense ranks 20th in the NFL with a third-down success rate allowed of 40.5%. This week, that crew will go up against a Carolina offense that also ranks 20th in third-down success rate, at 37.9%, so the playing field appears to be even. However, the Panthers have been very aggressive and quite good on fourth downs this season, so the job won't necessarily be over with a third-down stop. Carolina's 33 fourth-down attempts this season are second only to the 35 attempted by the Giants, and their conversion rate of 69.7% ranks sixth. On the flip side, when the Bucs have the ball they may have a distinct advantage in this area of the game. Tampa Bay's offense ranks 16th in third-down conversion rate (38.7%) while the Carolina defense is 29th with a success rate allowed of 44.9%. Over their last six games, the Bucs are succeeding on 41.7% of their third-down tries.
KEY MATCHUPS
- Panthers WR Tetairoa McMillan vs. Buccaneers CB Jamel Dean
Tetairoa McMillan, the eighth-overall pick in the 2025 draft, has had a strong rookie campaign, immediately emerging as the number-one option for quarterback Bryce Young. McMillan has been targeted 102 times and has 59 receptions; no other player on the Panthers' offense has had more than 56 targets or 30 catches. The 6-4, 213-pound receiver has a massive catch radius and sure hands, and he is adept at picking up yards after the catch. He can get up to top speed quickly and make catches in a crowd. Young often looks to his standout rookie when he's throwing in the intermediate range (10-19 air yards) and McMillan has been one of the NFL's most productive players on such routes. Since McMillan's most common starting point on a play is out wide to the left of the offense, he should see a lot of cornerback Jamel Dean, who primarily plays on that side. Dean's excellent 2025 season continues; heading into the Week 15 game, he had a streak of 839 coverage snaps in which he had not allowed a touchdown, the second-longest such run among all NFL cornerbacks. At the same time, he ranked first among corners who had been targeted at least 40 times in yards per target (4.5), completion percentage (39.1%) and passer rating (26.1). Dean has the size and length to compete with McMillan and both players are very good at playing the boundary on sideline passes.
- Buccaneers G Dan Feeney vs. Panthers DT Derrick Brown
Carolina's defense has made significant strides in 2025 after a very rough season in 2024, and while the addition of such free agents as Tre'von Moehrig, Christian Rozeboom and Tershawn Wharton have helped, perhaps the biggest difference is the presence of Derrick Brown in the middle. Brown suffered a season-ending injury in Week One last season but has started every game this season while amassing 49 tackles, a team-leading 4.0 sacks, nine quarterback hits and a forced fumble. He is also adept at timing exactly when to throw his hands up when he is locked in with a blocker, as his seven passes defensed can attest. The seventh-overall pick in 2023, Brown was a Pro Bowl selection in 2023 and is a very difficult man to move in the run game. A run of injuries – including ones that put starting guards Cody Mauch and Ben Bredeson on injured reserve – have forced the Bucs to adjust continually along the offensive line this season, but veteran Dan Feeney has now settled in at right guard, starting the last seven games. Feeney has loads of NFL experience, with a total of 129 regular season games played and 72 starts and he's become an important part of a line that has allowed a 6.65% sacks-per-pass play rate, 14th in the NFL. According to Pro Football Focus, Feeney has been flagged just once this season and has been credited with allowing three sacks.
- Panthers T Taylor Moton vs. Buccaneers OLB Haason Reddick
On a line that has undergone multiple changes and deal with a number of injuries in recent seasons, right tackle Taylor Moton has been a rock for the Panthers, starting 125 games over the past eight seasons. In 13 games this season, he has allowed just three sacks, according to Pro Football Focus, while committing four penalties. The 6-5, 325-pound lineman anchors well but can also move nimbly in pass protection against speed rushers. He and the Panthers' offensive line have allowed a sacks-per-pass play rate of 7.31%, good for 18th in the NFL. Buccaneers outside linebacker comes off the left edge of the Bucs' defensive front most of the time, which means he'll be lined up against Moton quite a bit. Last Thursday, Reddick was responsible for the Bucs' lone sack of the evening against Atlanta, and it was nearly a game-changer as it forced a fumble on the Falcons' last possession, but the Bucs were unable to recover. That was the 15th strip-sack that Reddick has recorded since 2020, the second most by any player in the NFL in that span. Reddick was making a big impact on the Bucs' pass rush prior to the knee and ankle injuries that sidelined him from Weeks 8-12. In the first seven games, the Bucs had a pressure rate of 38.9% on 167 opposing dropbacks when he was off the field, which leaped to 47.2% when he was on the field. Reddick regaining that form down the stretch could be the key to the Bucs being able to play consistent pressure on Bryce Young in Weeks 16 and 18.
- Buccaneers WR Chris Godwin vs. Panthers CB Chau Smith-Wade
As noted above, the Buccaneers had Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan in action together for the first time in Week 15 against Atlanta, and it's worth noting that of those four it was Godwin who stayed on the field for 96% of the snaps. It was his touchdown and two-point conversion catch that gave the Buccaneers a 28-14 lead early in the fourth quarter. With Evans and Egbuka now available to put pressure on the other team's outside cornerbacks, Godwin can focus largely on playing out of the slot, where he has been at his best throughout his career. He is a master of taking quick passes and turning them into first-down gains with his vision and subtle cuts in traffic. He is also extremely tough and willing to fight for extra yards, and he's one of the best blocking receivers in the NFL. That's a lot for Chau Smith-Wade to contend with, but the 2024 fifth-round pick has settled in well as the Panthers' slot corner in his second season. Smith-Wade is an athletic cornerback with the loose hips needed to operate out of the slot against quick-footed receivers in traffic. While Evans and Egbuka are dealing with outside corners Jaycee Horn and Michael Jackson – who have a combined eight interceptions this season – Godwin and Smith-Wade could be waging an equally important battle in the middle of the field.
