The 1-5 Bucs will steer their sinking ship in the direction of Bank of America Stadium this Sunday for their first NFC South contest of the season. What awaits them in Charlotte is a matchup with the defending division champion Panthers, who come in at 3-2 and currently atop the division.

Despite being 1-5, Tampa Bay actually has an opportunity in the next two weeks to give itself a lifeline back into contention. If the team beats Carolina and then returns home and beats Atlanta, that would have the Bucs at 3-5, but more importantly, they’d be 2-0 in NFC South play.

Now, no one would blame you if you scoff at the notion of Todd Bowles and Co. emerging victorious in back-to-back weeks against divisional opponents. You won’t even be blamed if you scoff at the idea of Tampa Bay winning this Sunday. But that’s the opportunity ahead for this group, and it needs to take advantage — especially with the trade deadline looming in early November.

What should be a plus for the Bucs is that Baker Mayfield could be back under center for the first time since dislocating his thumb at the end of the team’s Week 3 loss. Mayfield returned to practice Wednesday as a full participant, which is a good sign for his availability.

Before we dive deeper with a more comprehensive look at the matchup on Friday, here’s a general preview of this Sunday’s game in Charlotte, NC:

The Last Time…

These two teams last met on the final weekend of the 2025 regular season, and there was a unique division clinching scenario that came into play. The Panthers could’ve won the NFC South outright with a win over the Bucs at Raymond James Stadium. Instead, Tampa Bay won that game on Jan. 3, 16-14, to keep itself alive for a fifth straight NFC South title and a sixth consecutive playoff berth. A win by the Saints over the Falcons on the final day of the season, Jan. 4, would’ve done it.

Instead, New Orleans lost at Atlanta, costing Tampa Bay its division title and playoff appearance streaks. The 8-9 Bucs were out, and the 8-9 Panthers earned the division crown for the first time in a decade. As for the Week 18 game itself, though? It was a defensive struggle that may only be remembered years down the line as the final game of Lavonte David’s historic Buccaneer career.

Bucs ILB Lavonte David – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

David recovered a fumble in the narrow Tampa Bay victory, and that takeaway was one of three by Todd Bowles’ defense. The third of those three came on the final play of the game, which sealed the two-point win for the home team. Carolina was just 1-of-8 on third downs in the game and rushed for only 19 yards on 14 attempts.

The Bucs offense didn’t exactly have a banner day for itself on a rainy evening either, but a touchdown pass from Baker Mayfield to Cade Otton and three Chase McLaughlin field goals were ultimately enough.

The Panthers have a 26-25 edge in the all-time series between these two teams, though the Bucs have won 10 of the 12 meetings since 2020. Bowles has a 3-1 record over his former offensive coordinator, Dave Canales, since Canales took over as Carolina’s head coach ahead of the 2024 season.

How The Bucs And Panthers Are Trending

For the slightest of moments in Week 6, it looked like the Bucs had turned a corner and were headed for an unexpected recovery from their 0-4 start. Having beaten the Cowboys in Week 5 and leading the Steelers by 13 in the fourth quarter, it looked like they could be on the other side of things with a chance to get to 2-4 ahead of their first two NFC South games of the season. Win those two contests and all of a sudden, they’d be 4-4 with one game to go before their bye week.

Instead, everything went south in the fourth quarter and into overtime. Aided by two Jalon Daniels interceptions, Pittsburgh scored 16 straight points to take a late 19-16 lead. And while Daniels and Ted Hurst III did enough to set up a game-tying Chase McLaughlin field goal from 53 yards out, Todd Bowles sent his tired defense out onto the field for the start of overtime and watched them allow a 12-play, 70-yard touchdown drive that took 6:45 off the clock. The Tampa Bay offense couldn’t respond, resulting in a 26-19 overtime loss. So, instead of 2-4 with a chance to get back to .500 within the next two weeks, the Bucs fell to 1-5 and remain rudderless.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

The Bucs continue to be held back by a completely ineffective offense, and there don’t seem to be any signs of improvement under coordinator Zac Robinson. While a Baker Mayfield return would and should help, it’s not like this is a unit that was lighting up opposing defenses when the veteran quarterback was healthy over the first three games. He had three total touchdowns and five turnovers over three games, with little in the way of production out of his top receivers in Chris Godwin Jr. and Emeka Egbuka. We’ll see if anything changes when — or if — Mayfield is back for this game.

On the other side of the ball, the Bucs actually are playing pretty well — better than they have in a long time, actually. They continue to shut down the run exceptionally well, the secondary continues to benefit from good play all around and the pass rush just came alive last week with five sacks against the Steelers. Rueben Bain Jr. and Keionte Scott notched their first career sacks, Al-Quadin Muhammad got his first as a Buc and David Walker added two and now has a team-leading four quarterback captures. For the most part, this unit is playing well enough to win games. The offense is simply letting the team down.

Speaking of being let down, there’s plenty to be said about how Bowles and Robinson are letting down this Buccaneer team. But more needs to be said about how much the team’s veterans are failing the operation as a whole. Godwin is being limited by his coordinator for the most part, but there’s also the matter of Ben Bredeson and Cody Mauch being weak links on the offensive line. Mayfield was letting the team down prior to his injury as well, playing some of his worst football as a Buc over the first three weeks.

Bucs ILB Alex Anzalone – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Defensively, all of the top performers are the younger players, such as Josiah Trotter, Jacob Parrish, Tykee Smith and Walker. That unit hasn’t gotten anything from the currently injured Antoine Winfield Jr., while Vita Vea, Calijah Kancey, Yaya Diaby and Alex Anzalone have all disappointed.

As for the Panthers, they got out to an up and down start in terms of wins and losses over the first four weeks of the season, going loss-win-loss-win ahead of an early Week 5 bye. On the other side of that bye, though, they made it two straight wins with a 25-14 win in Philadelphia over the shorthanded Eagles.

One constant thus far for Carolina this season has been the effectiveness of the offense, led by quarterback Bryce Young. The 2023 No. 1 overall pick has seemingly gotten it together under head coach Dave Canales and offensive coordinator Brad Idzik — both former Bucs coaches — and has completed 60% of his passes thus far for 1,549 yards and 11 touchdowns to two interceptions (with another touchdown on the ground).

Panthers QB Bryce Young and HC Dave Canales – Photo by: USA Today

Carolina has scored 30+ points in three of its five games thus far and boasts the league’s No. 4 scoring offense and No. 2 passing offense. Young has done an outstanding job of spreading the wealth in the passing game, too, with five players into double-digit receptions (Tetairoa McMillan, Jalen Coker, Darren Waller, Tommy Tremble and Chuba Hubbard), two over the 300-yard mark (McMillan and Coker) and five different pass catchers with two touchdowns each (McMillan, Coker, Waller, Tremble and Hubbard).

The Panthers defense is a bit of a mystery. On one hand, the unit has recovered relatively well since allowing 59 points to the Bears in Week 1. They only allowed three points to the Falcons in Week 2, played well enough to win while allowing 21 points to the Browns in Week 3 and did what they were supposed to do against an Eagles offense without Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley this past Sunday.

With that said, something is lacking. The pass rush hasn’t been anything overly special, with Princely Umanmielen leading the way at three sacks and $30 million pass rusher Jaelan Phillips trailing close behind at 2.5. Carolina only has seven takeaways, which ranks in the bottom half of the league. And in a lot of the major categories, this defense ranks in the 20s. Ranking 27th against the run is especially glaring, and that’s something that will be worth keeping an eye on as Bucky Irving and the Buccaneer backfield look to exploit that.

Even with their flaws, the Panthers are 3-2 and looking like they should be the favorites in the NFC South through the first third of the season. The 1-5 Bucs certainly don’t look like contenders, the 2-4 Saints have disappointed and while the Falcons got back to 2-2 after an 0-2 start, they’ve lost two straight and appear headed for a third straight loss this weekend against the undefeated 49ers. Canales and Co. have designs on Carolina’s first back-to-back division titles since it won three straight from 2013-2015, the prime days of Cam Newton, and they’re off to a promising start.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles and Panthers HC Dave Canales – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Bob Donnan

Here’s how the two teams stack up with the rest of the league leading into Week 7:

Bucs Offense: 25th in scoring offense (19.8 PPG), 24th in total offense (292.7 yards per game), 30th in passing offense (164.8 yards per game), 8th in rushing offense (127.8 yards per game)

Panthers Offense: 4th in scoring offense (29.2 PPG), 2nd in total offense (404.4 yards per game), 1st in passing offense (295.6 yards per game), 17th in rushing offense (108.8 yards per game)

Bucs Defense: T-17th in scoring defense (23.0 points allowed per game), 4th in total defense (299.5 yards allowed per game), 20th in passing defense (224.0 yards allowed per game), 2nd in run defense (75.5 yards allowed per game)

Panthers Defense: 21st in scoring defense (24.6 points allowed per game), 25th in total defense (354.2 yards allowed per game), 19th in passing defense (222.0 yards allowed per game), 27th in run defense (132.2 yards allowed per game)

As of Wednesday night, the Panthers are 3-point home favorites over the Bucs, with the Over/Under set at 45 (per Hard Rock Bet).

Bucs at Panthers Game Information

When: Sunday, October 25
Where: Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte, NC)
Kickoff: 1:00 p.m. ET
TV: FOX – Kevin Kugler (Play by Play), Daryl Johnston (Analyst), Allison Williams (Reporter)
Bucs Radio: 98Rock – Tony Castricone (Play by Play), Dave Moore (Color), Jay Recher (Reporter)
Spanish Radio: 96.1 Caliente – Martín Gramática, Santiago Gramática