The Carolina Panthers are your NFC South Champions, and got there thanks to one of the stupidest events in recent football memory. The eyes of Tampa Bay and Charlotte were locked on Saints vs. Falcons in a proxy war that determined who would win the division, and was only a factor of hatred for the teams involved.
It was surreal to watch Fox keep cutting to Florida and North Carolina for live reactions from Bucs and Panthers fans, cheering for the Saints and Falcons respectively, waving flags, heck there was even a large contingent of fans from Carolina in Atlanta waving “RISE UP” flags and pulling for their division foe to get them into the playoffs. It was appropriately stupid for the NFC South, which has been football’s weirdest, most unhinged division since coming into existence in 2002.
Over the course of 23 years nobody has been dominant in this division. The Saints and Buccaneers have seven division titles, the Panthers have six, and the Falcons have four. This is far and away the closest four-way battle in football, which has often led to the perception of mediocrity — and yet, NFC South teams have represented in conference in the Super Bowl seven times in 23 years, which is more than the NFC East or NFC North over the same time period. They’ve won three Super Bowls over this same span, which is more than the NFC West or NFC North. This is a conference that thrives on the chaos of the playoffs, even if their regular season results don’t show dominance.
Will Carolina manage to do it this time? HELL NO. Even the most rose-colored Panthers fan realizes this is a one-and-done experience in the playoffs. The Panthers are too young, too inexperienced, and it’s far too early in their build to seriously consider them contenders in any way. Defensively they’re a mess from week to week, there’s only one consistent receiver in Tetairoa McMillan, who’s a rookie, and there hasn’t been a lot of discussion around how the Panthers have been playing all season with a revolving door on the offensive line due to a series of costly injuries.
We’re back to the yearly litigation of whether or not the playoff system in the NFL is “fair” because of the top seeds going to the division champions by default. On the surface it’s patently unfair to see an 8-9 team get to host a game against a team with 11 or 12 wins, but we don’t need to litigate it further, because the system is actually fair. It’s up and its down, everyone understands the stakes, and the only guaranteed way to lock up a home playoff game is to win a division. If we had an alternate system them teams would begin to bench players earlier, make more weeks at the end of the season meaningless, and put too much of an emphasis on strength of schedule.
For all the hell the NFC South gets, they played a much tougher schedule this season than most of the NFC due to their divisional draw being against the NFC West and AFC East. The Panthers finished the regular season with the 6th most-difficult schedule in the NFC (11th toughest overall), which was substantially tougher than the Eagles (10th in NFC, 16th overall), Packers (14th in NFC, 25th overall), or the Bears (15th in NFC, 28th overall). Perhaps we can pump the brakes on all the “8-9 is horrible” talk when you don’t get 10 cupcakes on the schedule?
Meanwhile in Tampa Bay this might have been the best possible outcome for the future of the Buccaneers. It had become apparent this season that Todd Bowles isn’t it, and its frankly remarkable that Tampa Bay was able to be in a potential playoff position late in the season after being thrown under the bus by their head coach and everything was on fire.
This marks a pivotal point for this franchise to determine its future. Mike Evans is in the last year of his contract, Baker Mayfield is carrying a $51M cap hit and needs to either be extended or a succession plan in place. Do you really want Bowles at the center of that shift? It could be high time for the team to move on at coach, find some young blood, and accept that in Dave Canales and Liam Coen they might have messed up by letting two coordinators walk, and be left with the worst coach of the three.
Perhaps Josh Grizzard is worth a look if the team wants to keep everything in house? Alternatively this team should absolutely look at someone like Kevin Stefanski if the Browns part way with their head coach as expected. Either way, the playoffs would have made a change hard to sell — now they can move on freely without needing overt justification. When we get down to brass tacks the Bucs have been middling the last few seasons and Bowles hasn’t appreciably improved the defense.
It’s time. The Panthers move onto the playoffs and justify their direction. The Buccaneers get to course correct from a scheme that hasn’t been working.
And now, the other winners and losers from Week 18…
Winner: Mitchell Trubisky
Sure, it was against the Jets — but there are so many teams in dire need of quarterback upgrades right now that Trubisky might have secured a bag with his four touchdown win over New York. Everyone will be looking at Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, and Baker Mayfield as examples of quarterback reclamation projects that have gone right — and someone out there is going to try to kick the tires on the 31-year-old after that performance,
Winner: Pittsburgh Steelers
You don’t have to like it, but you have to respect that this team doesn’t say die. Pittsburgh are back in the playoffs, and sure it took a lot of things going their way — but there’s simply no denying that the Steelers are the class of the AFC North until someone proves otherwise.
Welcome back to draft purgatory, Minnesota. This franchise is utterly incapable of understanding the need to take a step back to take two forward, and they’re doing in while achieving absolutely nothing. The Vikings went from 4-8 five weeks ago, to finishing the season on a five game in streak. In doing so they took their draft position from potentially Top 5, down to No. 18 — and they still don’t have any playoffs to show for it.
The Vikings keep using the term “competitive rebuild,” which is a really nice phrase — but it only makes sense when you’re actually competitive. Failing to make the playoffs or getting bounced in the Wild Card round every year isn’t moving the franchise forward. Treading water with draft picks is a continual problem for the franchise, and it’s going to keep on going the same way.
Loser: The Ravens defense
Obviously people are piling on Tyler Loop for the Ravens missing out on the playoffs, but lets get real here: None of that would have mattered if the Baltimore defense wasn’t a sieve for the majority of the game. Sure, a kicker is supposed to make their kicks, but a defense shouldn’t allow 9-for-16 on third down, give up 390 yards, and let Pittsburgh bully around the line at the point of attack.
A little perspective is important.
