{"id":659710,"date":"2026-01-07T00:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T00:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/659710\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T00:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T00:10:15","slug":"bucs-close-season-with-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/659710\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucs close season with a win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> walked away with a win over the Carolina Panthers<\/a> on Saturday, a must win to keep their playoff dream alive, The game was a mixed bag that still ended in the Bucs\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/p>\n

The Buccaneers did what they had to do: win.<\/p>\n

The offense showed balance, mixing the run and pass effectively and keeping Carolina\u2019s defense on its heels. Sustained drives helped Tampa Bay win the time-of-possession battle and limited opportunities for the Panthers to gain momentum. Defensively, the Bucs held their own despite starting two 21-year-old rookie corners in Jacob Parrish and Benjamin Morrison. While outsized against Tet McMillan and giving up a touchdown, Parrish also recorded an interception against McMillan in tight coverage on the outside, being asked to play wide with injuries to both McCollum and Dean.<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/p>\n

Despite the win, the Buccaneers weren\u2019t sharp across the board. Penalties proved costly at times, extending Panthers drives and wiping out positive plays on offense. Those self-inflicted mistakes kept Carolina hanging around longer than necessary and stalled Tampa Bay\u2019s ability to take over the game completely.<\/p>\n

There were also stretches where the offense struggled to capitalize in the red zone. Settling for fewer points than expected left the door open for a potential comeback and highlighted an issue that could become problematic against stronger competition.<\/p>\n

The Ugly<\/p>\n

The ugliest moments came from lapses in focus. Missed tackles and blown assignments allowed the Panthers to generate chunk plays that shouldn\u2019t have happened. While none ultimately flipped the outcome, those breakdowns were glaring and will certainly show up during film review. The worst was on 4th down when rookie Jacob Parrish let McMillan behind him, and the Bucs safeties were out of position, resulting in a backbreaking touchdown.<\/p>\n

There were also moments where execution simply fell apart, mistimed routes, miscommunication, and plays that looked disjointed, an ugly trend that has continued all season long and has led to the Bucs implosion after a 6-2 start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers walked away with a win over the Carolina Panthers on Saturday, a must win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[247,265,210,211,235,260,7,20842,330,88,6,35196,245,338,236,9,266,209,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":["post-659710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-american","tag-american-football","tag-bay","tag-buccaneers","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-football","tag-hub","tag-negative","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-hub","tag-overall","tag-overall-negative","tag-panthers","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabaybuccaneers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115850918426934981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659710","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=659710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}