Panthers could have wrapped up the NFC South title. Now they likely need a win in Week 18
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Carolina guard Austin Corbett didn’t realize just how big of an opportunity the Panthers had squandered until coach Dave Canales spoke to the team in the locker room following Sunday’s 27-10 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
That’s when Corbett found out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had lost to the Miami Dolphins at the same time the Panthers fell short.
All he could do was shake his head.
“It was like, ‘Shoot, we missed another one,’” Corbett said.
Because the Bucs lost, a win by the Panthers would have given them the NFC South title and ended a seven-year playoff drought.
Instead, Carolina (8-8) will head to Tampa Bay in Week 18 likely needing a victory to capture its first NFC South title since 2015. Carolina could also get in with a loss if Atlanta were to win its final two games, against the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints.
Canales had asked the Bank of America Stadium scoreboard operators to not show the score of the Tampa Bay-Miami game because he wanted his team to focus on the Seahawks.
In the end, what happened in South Florida didn’t matter.
The Seahawks turned two third-quarter takeaways into 14 points and outscored the Panthers 24-7 in the second half.
“Now he have to get over the fact that we missed an opportunity with the Bucs losing that game,” Canales said.
One thing the Panthers have shown this season is resiliency.
It started in early November when Carolina bounced back from a 40-9 drubbing at home to the Bills with a win at Lambeau Field against the Packers. The Panthers returned home the following week and lost to the last-place Saints, only to rebound with a 30-27 win the following week at Atlanta.
An ugly Monday night loss at San Francisco followed, but again the Panthers returned with a strong performance and stunned the visiting Rams 30-27.
After their bye, the Panthers lost to the Saints for a second time, giving away a valuable division tiebreaker. They followed that up with a 23-20 win over Tampa Bay last weekend.
“We keep doing this to ourselves,” Corbett said of the win-loss cycle. “We are making it hard on ourselves, winning pretty and then losing ugly.”
Canales knows he has a young team and said it’s simply “who we are.”
Quarterback Bryce Young was upbeat after Sunday’s loss, confident the Panthers will bounce back and beat the Buccaneers for the second time in three weeks.
“That’s the goal,” Young said. “We’re not looking at the past. There’s nothing in this league that entitles you to the next (win). Once we have this 24 (hours), we’re going to go and grow. The goal is always to go 1-0. That’ll be the same and it’ll start with having the best week of practice that we can have. So we are excited for that process.”
Canales said his team has been good at “flushing” losses.
“The guys will be used to having this championship mindset,” Canales said. “The way I see it is we’ve been playing playoff football for over a month and every single one of these games has mattered. That’s the approach that we have to take. It heightens the focus and the guys come in ready to work.”
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl