Carolina Panthers NFL Week 15 rooting guide for NFC South, playoffs standings

The Carolina Panthers are entering Week 15 tied with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for first place in the NFC South. Tampa technically holds a tie breaker over the Panthers with a superior record against common opponents, but that only matters if the season ends today. The Bucs and Panthers have four combined divisional games left in the 2025 regular season, including both of their games against each other. Both team are awkwardly sharing the drivers seat for the NFC South race right now with one simple goal each: win and they’re in. Both technically have outside shots at a wildcard berth, as well, but those hopes leave a lot up to chance.

Let’s take a look at this weekend’s schedule and see how it affects the Panthers playoff hopes.

The NFC South

Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Thursday Night Football

The Panthers have a realistic scenario to clinch the NFC South title next week when they host the Buccaneers in Charlotte. That scenario begins with the Bucs losing at home tonight against the Falcons. Tampa narrowly edged the Falcons 23-20 back in Week 1, but both teams are in wildly different places now. The question before Panthers fans isn’t whether or not Kirk Cousins can beat the Bucs without Drake London, it’s whether or not we can stomach rooting for him to do so.

The Panthers have an undeniably easier time knocking the four-times defending NFC South champions off of their throne if the Falcons triumph tonight. Remember, rooting for them to win doesn’t mean we’re rooting for them to look good. A win is a win, even if it comes at the “expense” of Tampa just looking plain awful on a short week.

Carolina Panthers at New Orleans Saints

This may come as a shock to the Panthers’ faithful, but their own efforts are the most important factor influencing their playoff fate this December. Their hopes for the division title are currently being haunted by that embarrassing Week 10 17-7 loss to the Saints. We’ve talked about how they can do it.

Now we just need to see them redeem themselves. A Bucs loss tonight and Panthers win on Sunday means the Panthers will host Tampa Bay in Week 16 with a shot to clinch the division with two weeks left to play. Step one is beating the Saints.

The wildcard longshot

The 7-6 Carolina Panthers are two to three games behind the current wildcard candidates with four games left to play. In a race for positions five through seven in the NFC standings, they currently place ninth. The 10-3 Seattle Seahawks, the 9-4 San Francisco 49ers, the 9-4 Chicago Bears, and the 8-5 Detroit Lions are all ahead int he standings. It is, as the heading suggests, a long shot.

This isn’t getting a full breakdown because we aren’t at the full Charlie Day conspiracy theory board level of math yet. Simply put, we’re a long way away from tie breakers mattering. The Panthers need all of the teams above them to lose this week and most of the remaining weeks while they stop losing. It’s going to be a narrow path that sees the Panthers qualify for a wildcard with a record that wasn’t good enough to win their division.

That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, because narrow paths are kind of the Carolina way at this point. That does mean you have clear rooting interests for this weekend. You want the Cleveland Browns to beat the Bears, the Los Angeles Rams to hold off the Detroit Lions, the Tennessee Titans to Little Engine That Could their way past the 49ers, and Old Man Rivers to show up in mid-career form to take the Indianapolis Colts over the Seattle Seahawks.

That’s the easy version. We can get a lot more complicated with scenarios where the Panthers head-to-head win over the Rams comes into play and therefore we want the Lions to beat them this weekend, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s watch the Panthers beat the Saints before we start forecasting tiebreakers against teams that already have ten wins.