CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NFL coaches and players often talk about the 24-hour rule, the day-long period they allow themselves to enjoy a satisfying win or to brood over a difficult defeat.

But after the Carolina Panthers squandered a chance to put themselves in prime playoff position by blowing a 10-point, third-quarter lead in a 20-17 loss at New Orleans on Sunday, at least one player didn’t really see the point in taking 24 minutes to relive the Saints game, let alone 24 hours.

“It’s something we can think about for maybe 15 minutes after the game. It does us no good to play out what could have beens. So we just focus on this week,” linebacker Christian Rozeboom said.

With a victory Sunday, the Panthers (7-7) would have had a chance to clinch their first playoff berth since 2017 this week against Tampa Bay. But after losing to the last-place Saints (4-10) for the second time in five weeks, the Panthers fell into a tie with Tampa Bay atop the NFC South.

The good news: They face the Buccaneers twice over the final three weeks. The Panthers can end their playoff drought with a sweep. If the two split, the Panthers will need to beat Seattle in Week 17 and hope Tampa Bay loses to Miami.

So Rozeboom chose to look ahead rather than dwell on the missed opportunity in New Orleans.

“I think we had a good mindset going into last week. We didn’t overlook them at all. We knew that they were playing hard, they were playing good football,” he said. “Obviously, it doesn’t really make a difference on the what ifs and all that right now. It’s what is that’s what’s our reality now and making it to the playoffs.”

As the Panthers prepare to host Baker Mayfield and the Bucs, The Athletic looks at four keys for the Panthers’ playoff push.

1. Stay aggressive

Up 17-7 on the Saints, it felt like the Panthers took their foot off the gas late in the game rather than try to put a three-win team out of its misery. Dave Canales was daring in his decision to go for a fourth-and-1 early in the fourth quarter rather than to have Ryan Fitzgerald try to make it a two-score game with a 53-yard field goal. But Canales’ play call wasn’t anything outside of the box: a handoff to Chuba Hubbard up the middle for no gain.

The Panthers have been the most successful fourth-down team this year. But they’re a little hamstrung on fourth-and-shorts because of Canales’ refusal to use the 5-10 Bryce Young on quarterback sneaks.

“With Bryce, it’s physics. He goes about 190 pounds,” Canales said. “When you have a 220-, 230-pound quarterback leaning on the center, that’s an advantage. We’re not putting a bunch of force that way. I don’t see that as an advantage. The other part is I like the leverage off of some of the formations we use to throw shots down the field.”

Canales has other options. Rookie tight end Mitchell Evans, a high school QB, ran sneaks at Notre Dame, while backup QB Andy Dalton came in for a couple of fourth-and-shorts during Young’s rookie season under the former coaching staff.

The Panthers’ defense can’t get too passive, either. When the Saints went to a hurry-up offense on their game-tying drive, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero stayed mostly in the same zone coverage, which rookie QB Tyler Shough exploited with several completions to Chris Olave.

“Coach didn’t really get time to get a play call in. It seemed like they knew what we was in because they was just going tempo,” cornerback Jaycee Horn said. “I think they hit (Olave) with a dig route on my side, came back to the same play on the other side on Mike (Jackson).”

With the Saints facing a third down at the Panthers’ 12, Evero went after Shough with seven pass rushers with man coverage behind them. But when the blitzers didn’t get home, Shough found Olave, who beat Horn for a 12-yard touchdown.

With the Saints down to one timeout on their game-winning drive, Evero had the defensive backs shade toward the outside to keep receivers from getting out of bounds and stopping the clock. The Panthers had no interior linemen in on the play where Shough ran up the middle with 12 seconds left and New Orleans out of timeouts — a look that Horn said would have been effective if rookie Lathan Ransom hadn’t picked up a personal foul penalty for his hit on a sliding Shough.

“If Lathan don’t get that flag, they probably don’t get that play off or they kick a field goal from forever away. I see what coach E was thinking there,” Horn said. “And (there) was no pass rush so if they dropped back to pass, they would have took a lot of time off the clock because he would have been searching for somebody to throw to or he would’ve had to just throw it away and they wouldn’t have been in field goal range.”

2. Speaking of flags, enough already

The Panthers entered Sunday’s game as the NFL’s third-least penalized team, but finished with season highs in penalties (11) and penalty yards (103). Six of the penalties resulted in first downs for the Saints, who were penalized nine times for 78 yards.

During meetings Saturday, Horn said coaches talked about the tendency of the Alex Moore-led officiating crew to call things “real sticky” around the line of scrimmage. In addition to holding calls, Panthers defensive linemen Bobby Brown and LaBryan Ray were whistled for illegal use of hands.

“We knew that crew, they called it in the trenches real strict,” Horn said. “But that ain’t no excuse. We’ve gotta play cleaner and execute regardless.”

Like Ransom, Pro-Bowl defensive lineman Derrick Brown also picked up a personal foul on a play when Shough slid. And while Brown didn’t like the calls, he also said he knows the refs are always going to err on the side of caution with quarterbacks.

3. Bottle up Baker

Standing between the Panthers and their path to the playoffs are two of their former quarterbacks. But because they’re facing Mayfield twice — before and after the Week 17 game against Seattle and Sam Darnold — we’ll focus on the Bucs’ feisty QB.

The Panthers probably don’t have to worry much about hitting Mayfield while he’s sliding. Not because Mayfield won’t take off from the pocket, but as Rozeboom said: “He’s not gonna slide.”

Mayfield, who spent part of the 2022 season in Carolina, is undefeated in five games against the Panthers. He’s 4-0 since joining the Bucs, completing 65.1 percent of his passes for 933 yards, with seven touchdowns and three interceptions against Carolina.

Mayfield threw for 359 yards and five touchdowns in a 48-14 win over the Panthers in Week 17 last year in Tampa. The Panthers have had success getting pressure on Mayfield, with six sacks in the two games last year.

Baker Mayfield is 4-0 against Carolina since joining Tampa Bay. (Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)

The Panthers collected five sacks against the Saints, including the first two of the season for edge rusher D.J. Wonnum. But Shough also broke contain on several scrambles, finishing as the Saints’ leading rusher with 32 yards on 18 carries.

Canales, who was Mayfield’s offensive coordinator in Tampa in 2023, said the Panthers need to be disciplined in their rush plan against Mayfield “because he is another guy that will find wins on third down with his legs to extend drives.”

4. Get T-Mac more involved

While Olave took over Sunday’s game for the Saints, it was a quiet day for Panthers wideout Tetairoa McMillan, who finished with a season-low 25 receiving yards on two catches. With a dip in production over the last three games, it’s fair to wonder whether McMillan is dealing with a physical ailment or hitting the rookie wall.

The No. 8 pick from Arizona is still the betting favorite to win Offensive Rookie of the Year, but after averaging 4.9 receptions over the first 11 games, he had five total catches against San Francisco, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans. At least McMillan has made the most of his limited looks, pulling down a 29-yard TD vs. the 49ers and the game-winning, 43-yard score against the Rams.

He and Young nearly hooked up for another TD against the Saints. But Young’s pass was slightly behind a well-covered McMillan, who could not hang on. McMillan ranks second among rookies with both 59 catches (behind Tyler Warren’s 63) and 851 receiving yards (trailing Emeka Egbuka’s 870).

With McMillan getting the opponent’s top cornerback every week, Canales has tried to move him around in the alignment to improve his matchups. Jalen Coker is coming off his two best games of the season, which has been a good development. But if the Panthers want to keep playing into mid-January, Canales has to figure out a way to get McMillan going again.