The Panthers and Buccaneers enter Week 15 with identical 6-7 records and they’ll close the season with two games against each other in the final three weeks.
That kind of scheduling would make it easy to get caught looking past this week’s game, especially for a Panthers team that has not been to the postseason since the 2017 season. On Wednesday, head coach Dave Canales said that he wants to stress to his players that they can’t afford to do that with the Saints this week because losses in games that don’t feel as weighty as the ones against Tampa can still come back to haunt them.
“All of them, every single one from the beginning of the season,” Canales said, via the team’s website. “I understand how important every single game is as you get to this point in the season, and so you really can’t look past any game. Every game is a championship opportunity, just like the one we have in front of us. And we have to maintain that heightened focus and awareness of how important they are. There’s nothing worse than over the years you get through a season, and you look back, maybe you squeak in a wild card berth, or maybe you win the division, but you didn’t get the seeding that you could have because of a game that got away from you earlier in the season. It’s why it’s easy for me to sell that to the group to say, hey, every game is a championship opportunity, and we have one right in front of us on the road against a familiar opponent.”
The Saints’ 3-10 record might make it likelier for the Panthers to ease up, but recent history should help guard against that. They lost 17-7 to the Saints in Week 10 and the Saints beat the Bucs last week, which should provide ample reason for Carolina to take thing seriously this week.
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