The Tampa Bay Buccaneers needed some good news this weekend, and the New Orleans Saints gave them some.

Charlie Smyth’s 47-yard field goal with two seconds left gave the Saints (4-10) a 20-17 win over the Carolina Panthers (7-7), who entered the day a half-game up on Tampa Bay (7-7) for first place in the NFC South.

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The Bucs and Panthers will play for sole possession of first place next Sunday at Carolina, with both teams coming off losses to inferior opponents.

Tampa started this week’s NFL slate with one of its worst losses in recent memory. Facing a Falcons team that’s now 5-9 and already out of playoff contention, the Bucs had a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter, and had Atlanta facing a 3rd-and-28 on the game’s final possession.

Atlanta got a first down and ended up kicking a walkoff FG that led to Bucs coach Todd Bowles saying a lot of bad words in his postgame presser.

The Atlanta loss still hurts in Tampa, as does the previous week’s loss to the lowly Saints at home. But the Buccaneers are still favored to win the NFC South, a wild division that no team has defined more than the Saints.

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Despite its mixed record against Tampa Bay going back to the 2024 season, New Orleans has felled Carolina three straight times. The NFC South seems to be a division that nobody wants to win.

But somebody will end up atop the division, and that will either be Tampa Bay or Carolina.

With three regular-season games left, the Bucs and Panthers will face each other twice. The season finale is scheduled for the first weekend of January in Tampa Bay.

So what are the Buccaneers’ playoff chances now? Per PFSN’s Playoff Predictor, Tampa has a 66.4-percent chance to win the NFC South. Had Carolina won Sunday against the Saints, that probability would have plummeted to 27.4 percent.

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Should the Bucs and Panthers split the remaining matchups, the team’s middle games are against the Miami Dolphins (Tampa Bay) and the Seattle Seahawks (Carolina). Tampa plays at Miami on Sun., Dec. 28, and the Panthers will host Seattle the same day.

Tampa is back in the driver’s seat for now. But nothing in the NFC South has made sense this season, so we’ll just have to stay tuned.