On Saturday, the top two teams in the NFC South are set to face off. The 8-8 Carolina Panthers go on the road to face the 7-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The playoff scenario here should be simple, right? If Carolina wins, they're in. If Tampa wins, they'd be in as well, since they hold the common games tiebreaker over Carolina.
Yes, it sure sounds like it should be simple: an NFC South championship game of sorts that sends the winner to the postseason and the loser home. Alas, it is not that simple. Sure, if Carolina wins, the Panthers are in the playoffs. That part is as easy as it sounds. The Panthers just have to take care of business, something they failed to do in Week 17.
But Tampa winning doesn't guarantee that Tampa makes the playoffs. Instead, the Buccaneers will have to sit back and wait for the result of a Sunday game between two eliminated teams.
What needs to happen for the NFC South title
- Panthers win vs. Buccaneers (Saturday): Carolina clinches the NFC South outright. No help needed.
- Buccaneers win vs. Panthers (Saturday) AND Saints beat Falcons (Sunday): Tampa Bay wins the NFC South via tiebreakers.
- Buccaneers win vs. Panthers (Saturday) AND Falcons beat Saints (Sunday): A three-way tie at 8–9 sends the division to tiebreakers.
The Saints and Falcons might decide the NFC South
Atlanta has been eliminated from the playoffs for weeks now, but since Kirk Cousins took over as the starting quarterback, the team has been playing surprisingly good football. Atlanta has won three in a row, including Monday night's 27-24 win over the Los Angeles Rams.
That win led to an interesting scenario. The Falcons can't make the playoffs, but they can create a three-way tie for the NFC South crown with a win over the Saints on Sunday. If that happens and the Buccaneers beat the Panthers on Saturday, the top three teams in the NFC South would have identical 8-9 records, and that would massively change the tiebreakers.
Instead of common games deciding things like it would in a straight-up Carolina-Tampa Bay tie, the deciding factor would instead be head-to-head record among the three tied teams. Carolina is 3-1 against the other two teams after sweeping Atlanta earlier this season. Tampa, meanwhile, would only be 2-2 in those games, giving Carolina the tiebreaker. (At 1-3 against the other two, Atlanta has no path to the postseason.)
This has created a weird scenario where a Tampa win on Saturday would create unlikely alliances on Sunday. Carolina would be rooting for the Falcons to win, while the Buccaneers would be rooting for the Saints to win. It's very likely at this point that the Atlanta-New Orleans game is the deciding factor in the NFC South, even though neither team can make the postseason.
All this feels appropriate for a division that's been a mess all season. Atlanta would probably already have the division clinched if it had prioritized winning, but second-year quarterback Michael Penix was 3-6 in his nine starts. Surely, Kirk Cousins gets them a win or two more somewhere in there, especially with Penix leading two overtime losses, plus a one-point loss to New England that featured a late missed extra point from kicker John Parker Romo.
Meanwhile, New Orleans might have been in position to win the division if it had just started rookie Tyler Shough from the start. Shough has been the NFL's best rookie passer, and the team is 5-3 with him under center, while it was 1-7 with Spencer Rattler.
Two bad decisions about who to start at quarterback doomed two teams, and now that both are starting the right guy, they're playing in a meaningful Week 18 game. It just happens to be meaningful for two different teams.