The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a chance to clinch the NFC South division title this past weekend. Instead, they put forth a listless effort in a 23-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
The good news for the Buccaneers is that they will get a mulligan this Sunday, as all they have to do is beat the lowly Carolina Panthers, and they will take home the division crown.
However, head coach Todd Bowles does not want his team to think it will be that easy.
“Our thing is we can’t beat ourselves,” Bowles said, via Tampa Bay’s official team website. “We don’t care if they were 14-2. In the NFL anybody can beat anybody any given week, and division games are always tough. We have to play our game, make less mistakes, and then we’ll worry about the opponent on Sunday. If we can do that, we will have a chance to win.”
The Bucs first saw the Panthers in Week 13 and came away with a rather close 21-18 win at home. That started a four-game winning streak for the club, who had previously lost six of their last seven games going into that matchup.
As a result of the Buccaneers’ resiliency this season, Bowles does not think the team will have any problem getting the bad taste of the Saints loss out of their mouths.
“I mean, that’s any game. This one will be easy to get out of,” Bowles said. “We lost what three or four in a row and got out of that one. This one was hard because it was trying to clinch the division, but you [have] another chance to clinch it this week and we can’t worry about what happened yesterday. We will correct, move on, and get ready for Sunday.”
Tampa Bay is aiming to capture its third straight NFC South title. Last year, it was able to win the division in spite of having an 8-9 record. That won’t be the case this time around. The Bucs will have to beat the Panthers and finish 9-8 in order to secure another division crown.
Should the Buccaneers win this weekend, they would likely battle the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
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