{"id":639696,"date":"2025-12-30T06:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/639696\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T06:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:31:12","slug":"falcons-win-over-rams-puts-a-weird-cloud-over-panthers-buccaneers-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/639696\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons&#8217; win over Rams puts a weird cloud over Panthers-Buccaneers on Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A rare NFL <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nfzVowHa1aM&amp;t=184s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:three-way;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\">three-way<\/a> is now firmly in play.<\/p>\n<p>With the Falcons beating the Rams on Monday night, 27-24, Saturday&#8217;s standalone Buccaneers-Panthers game is no longer a true NFC South championship game.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Yes, Carolina wins the division with a victory in Tampa. If the Bucs win, however, the division won&#8217;t be decided until the next day, when the Falcons host the Saints.<\/p>\n<p>If the Buccaneers beat the Panthers on Saturday and the Falcons beat the Saints on Sunday, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and Atlanta would each finish 8-9. The ensuring three-team tie would go to the Panthers, based on a 3-1 record in the round robin among the division rivals.<\/p>\n<p>A three-team tie atop a division last happened in 2011, when the Broncos won the AFC West at 8-8. The Chargers and Raiders also finished 8-8, with the Chiefs at 7-9.<\/p>\n<p>A loss by Atlanta on Sunday (following a Tampa win on Saturday) would leave only Carolina and Tampa Bay tied. The two-way tiebreaker goes to the Bucs, based on record against common opponents. That would give Tampa Bay it&#8217;s fifth straight division tile and sixth consecutive playoff berth.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>For that reason alone, some thought the NFL would schedule Panthers-Bucs and Saints-Falcons for 1:00 p.m. ET (or 4:25 p.m. ET) on Sunday. Instead, the Panthers will face with Buccaneers, with the possibility of a major asterisk being applied to the outcome, if the Bucs snap out of a four-game funk and get the win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rare NFL three-way is now firmly in play. With the Falcons beating the Rams on Monday night,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[223,232,211,2956,235,346,224,7,6,236,525,209,704,250,2597,2596,494,4377],"class_list":{"0":"post-639696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-buccaneers","11":"tag-bucs","12":"tag-carolina","13":"tag-chiefs","14":"tag-falcons","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-panthers","18":"tag-raiders","19":"tag-tampa","20":"tag-tampa-bay","21":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","22":"tag-tampabay","23":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers","24":"tag-the-saints","25":"tag-win"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115807118131431216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}