The NFL’s schedule-makers were either prescient or lucky when they dropped their 2025 slate in May, at least when it comes to the NFC South. The league decided to pit Tampa Bay and Carolina against each other in Week 16 and Week 18, and lo and behold as we arrive at the first of those two games the Buccaneers and Panthers are tied for the division lead at 7-7 each. There are three weeks left to settle this thing, and barring an unlikely tie one of these two teams is going to be in the driver’s seat after their December 21 contest at Bank of America Stadium.

The Buccaneers suffered a disappointing loss in Week 15, surrendering a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter to the Falcons in an eventual 29-28 decision. That briefly knocked them out of first place in the division, but the New Orleans Saints subsequently did something similar to the Panthers three days later and the tie in the standings was back in place. That means the Buccaneers’ situation, goals and approach haven’t changed.

“You take them a day at a time – you put your head down and you work,” said Head Coach Todd Bowles. “We have an opportunity – we still have everything right in front of us. We’ve got to play a hell of a ball game. We got some things to clean up, but you know, it’s about right where you need to be at this time with everybody fighting for a playoff spot. We’re playing meaningful games in December and that’s all you can ask for.”

The Buccaneers are angling for their fifth straight division title, which would set an NFC South record, while the Panthers are trying to capture the crown for the first time since 2015. The Buccaneers looked like they might run away with the division when they rushed out to a 6-2 start, but the Panthers proved to be a team on the rise after their 5-12 finish in Dave Canales’ first season as head coach.

“They’re having a really great year, way better than last year,” said wide receiver Mike Evans, who returned from injured reserve last week to ring up six catches for 132 yards. “We have to be the most physical team, number one, and then we have to be the smartest team. If we do those things, I think our offense can take advantage of some things we saw.”

The Panthers have shown improvement on both sides of the ball but the defense is perhaps the more impressive turnaround story. Carolina spent in the offseason on such free agents as safety Tre’von Moehrig, defensive tackle Turk Wharton and linebacker Christian Rozeboom, and has benefited greatly from healthy seasons for defensive tackle Derrick Brown and cornerback Jaycee Horn. After ranking near the bottom of the NFL in a variety of defensive categories in 2024 – including the most points ever allowed in a single season – the Panthers have improved to middle-of-the-pack in most categories in 2025.

“The maturity [and] you can see the tweaks in the offensive system. They’re doing a lot more now than they did a year ago just putting it in the first time. So, you can see the growth in the offense and the guys adjusting to the audibles and you can see the defense really coming around and they got some guys in the offseason, free agency and draft wise, that they really turned into a solid football team.”

Carolina’s run defense, in particular, is much more stout with Brown back in the mix after he missed all but one game last year. The Panthers were last in the league in that category in 2024, allowing 179.8 yards per game, but have shaved more than 60 yards per game off that total in 2025 and rank 17th in the NFL. Bowles thinks that part of the game will be extremely important on Sunday, along with the Bucs’ 10th-ranked run defense against Carolina’s ninth-ranked rushing attack.

“It’s going to be critical on both sides of the ball,” he said. “They’ve got a very huge offensive line. They do a great job running the football. I think they had like four games with over 175 yards rushing and they got more 100-yard rushing games after that. So, it’s going to be critical.”

The Buccaneers did have an advantage of a long weekend to rest and recuperate after their Thursday night loss. Quarterback Baker Mayfield said that and events on Sunday reenergized his squad for the three-week stretch run.

“Yeah, there’s definitely an end-of-the-season push,” said Mayfield. “Obviously, it helped with the Saints winning, but regardless, we still need to take care of business the last three games anyways. That’s still the way we’re looking at it, so yeah, there’s new energy and guys are ready to go.”

Added Evans: “We’re all finally coming together. The whole team is trying to get back healthy. Like you said, we’ve been here before, so we know what it takes. [We have] to win. Don’t change anything, don’t do [anything] special, just do what we’ve been doing and try to win these ball games.”

GAME AND BROADCAST DETAILS

Carolina Panthers (7-7) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-7)

Sunday, December 21, 1:00 p.m. ET

Bank of America Stadium (capacity: 73,778)

Charlotte, North Carolina

TV Broadcast Team: Chris Myers (play-by-play), Mark Schlereth (analyst), Jen Hale (reporter)

Radio: 98Rock (WXTB, 97.9 FM), Flagship Station

Radio Broadcast Team: Gene Deckerhoff (play-by-play), Dave Moore (analyst), T.J. Rives (reporter)

Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente

Spanish Radio Broadcast Team: Carlos Bohorquez (play-by-play), Martin Gramática (analyst), Santiago Gramática (reporter)

ALL-TIME HEAD-TO-HEAD SERIES

The Buccaneers head to Charlotte in Week 16 with a chance to tie up their all-time series with the Panthers. And if they were able to accomplish that in Week 16 they would then be in position to grab the lead in the series in the Week 18 rematch. The last time Tampa Bay was ahead of Carolina in the teams’ shared history of games was at the end of the 2003 season, when it was up 4-3.

At the moment, the Panthers lead the all-time series with the Buccaneers, 25-24, but the Buccaneers have won nine of the last 10 meetings and 11 of the last 13. That includes consecutive season sweeps in 2020 and 2021, the first time the Bucs had managed that against Carolina since the NFC South was formed in 2002. They then duplicated that feat in 2023 and 2024.

The Buccaneers and Panthers also met three times before realignment put them in the same division, including a contest in Death Valley that the Bucs won, 20-13, in the Panthers’ 1995 inaugural season.

Last season’s sweep of the Panthers included two very different types of victory. The first was a dramatic 26-23 victory in overtime in Charlotte in Week 13. Bryce Young threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Adam Thielen to give Carolina a 23-20 lead with 30 seconds left in regulation. Baker Mayfield was able to drive the Bucs into position for Chase McLaughlin to hit a game-tying 51-yard field goal as time expired. Tampa Bay won the overtime coin toss but McLaughlin missed a 55-yard field goal and the Panthers subsequently drove into Buccaneers territory before Anthony Nelson forced a Chuba Hubbard fumble that was recovered by Yaya Diaby. A 38-yard run by Rachaad White set McLaughlin up for the 30-yard game-winner. In the rematch in Tampa in Week 17, the Bucs took the drama out of it, opening up a 27-7 lead by the second quarter and cruising to a 48-14 decision. Mayfield threw five touchdown passes against no interceptions, including two scores each to Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan.

The Buccaneers got another season sweep in 2023, with both games occurring in the last six weeks of the season. The first meeting was in Week 13, which the Buccaneers won 21-18 in Tampa. On a rainy afternoon and early evening, the Bucs outlasted a game Panthers squad thanks to wide receiver Chris Godwin’s 19-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter on an end-around. That gave the home team an 11-point lead, which the Panthers shaved to three on Hubbard’s one-yard touchdown run with five minutes to go. Carolina got the ball back with 3:31 to play but safety Antoine Winfield Jr. saved the Bucs with an interception near midfield. In the rematch in Charlotte in Week 18, Winfield made another critical play, stripping Panthers wide receiver D.J. Chark of the ball inches before the goal line on what seemed certain to be a 43-yard touchdown. That play helped preserve a shutout as the two teams combined for just 447 yards of offense and all the points in a 9-0 decision came on McLaughlin field goals.

Since the two teams started playing each other twice a year, the head-to-head battle has traditionally been one-sided, though that side often flips back and forth. From 2002-17, 13 of the 16 season series between these two teams ended in a sweep, including every one from 2009 through 2017. It went Carolina’s way in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017. The Bucs got the sweep in 2002, 2010, 2012 and 2016. Interestingly, the three splits came in years the Buccaneers either made the playoffs (2005, 2007) or really should have (2008…which ended in a four-game losing streak after a 9-3 start).

The 2022 head-to-head, however, was a split, with each team winning at home. Carolina handed the Bucs perhaps their most humbling loss of the season in Week Seven, a 21-3 drubbing at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. The Panthers came into the game with a 1-5 record and had recently fired Head Coach Matt Rhule and traded superstar running back Christian McCaffrey. Third-string quarterback P.J. Walker completed 16 of his 22 passes and tossed two touchdowns against no interceptions and running backs D’Onta Foreman and Hubbard combined for 181 rushing yards.

The rematch in Week 17 proved to be one of the Buccaneers’ most important wins in recent years as it clinched the team’s second straight NFC South title and made a potential divisional free-for-all in Week 18 moot. It didn’t come easily, as the Panthers rushed out to a quick 14-0 lead on two Sam Darnold touchdown passes, but Tom Brady solved the problem by repeatedly throwing moon shots to Mike Evans. Evans caught touchdown passes of 63, 57 and 30 yards and finished the game with 207 yards on 10 grabs. His last one put the Bucs in the lead for the first time in the fourth quarter, and a Brady touchdown run provided the final winning margin in a 30-24 squeaker.

The Bucs and Panthers met twice in the final three weeks of the 2021 season, with Tampa Bay taking both contests by a combined score of 73-23. In the regular season finale, the Buccaneers got 137 receiving yards from Rob Gronkowski and two touchdown receptions from Evans before wideout Scotty Miller capped the scoring by taking an end-around 33 yards for a touchdown. Two weeks earlier, the Buccaneers had prevailed at Bank of America Stadium when the defense sacked quarterbacks Darnold and Cam Newton a total of seven times and allowing just two field goals. Safety Jordan Whitehead had a key interception and three pass break-ups. Ke’Shawn Vaughn’s 55-yard touchdown jaunt, the Bucs’ longest run of the year, started the scoring and emerging wideout Cyril Grayson accounted for 95 yards of offense, including a 62-yard reception.

In 2020, the Bucs’ September win at home against Carolina was the first of 15 they would stack up on their way to a Super Bowl championship, and the first win as a Buccaneer for Brady. Leonard Fournette paced the offense with 116 yards from scrimmage and two touchdowns and Carlton Davis and Whitehead each had interceptions off Teddy Bridgewater in a 31-17 decision. The rematch in Charlotte in November was a high-scoring affair that included the longest run in Buccaneers’ history, Ronald Jones’ 98-yard touchdown dash. Incredibly, the Buccaneers scored on 10 straight possessions to pull away from the Panthers for a 46-23 win.

In 2019, the Buccaneers secured a tight win in Charlotte on a Thursday night in Week Two when Vernon Hargreaves knocked McCaffrey out of bounds two yards shy of the sticks on an all-or-nothing fourth-down run off a direct snap. That 20-14 Bucs win was balanced four weeks later by a 37-26 win for Carolina in a game played in London.

Perhaps the most notable wins for Tampa Bay in the series with Carolina came in 2002 and 2005. At the midpoint of the 2002 Super Bowl campaign, the Buccaneers were coming off a deflating loss in Philadelphia (again) and had to play at Carolina without their quarterback, Brad Johnson, who woke up with the flu. Defense dominated and the Bucs were trailing 9-6 late in the fourth quarter before Martin Gramatica saved the day with two long field goals. In 2005, the Buccaneers were in the middle of a late-season three-game road swing when they went to Bank of America Stadium and won a battle for first place by a 20-10 score. Ronde Barber punctuated that game with a sack and a critical interception, becoming the first cornerback ever to reach 40 interceptions and 25 sacks in his career.