The Carolina Panthers were in a lot of conversations through the month of December about the playoffs. At one time they were wild-card contenders, at others they had myriad chances to clinch their division. At this point, we all know how those conversations went and where the Panthers stand today. The long story short is that if the Panthers beat or tie the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday to finish 8-8-1 or better, they make the playoffs. If the Atlanta Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints on Sunday
to force a three-way 8-9 tie at the top of the NFC South then the Panthers win the tie-breakers and the division to make the playoffs.
What we didn’t spend much time talking about in December is what happens next, if and when Carolina does advance to their first post season game since January 2018. Let’s dig in to their possible opponents.
The NFC West’s own almost three-way
The NFC South isn’t the only division running hot and competitive at the top. The NFC West has three of the best teams in all of football right now. The Los Angeles Rams, their likely third place team can finish the season with a minimum of 11 wins. They host the Arizona Cardinals for a divisional finish to their season while the 12-4 San Francisco 49ers host the 13-3 Seattle Seahawks for a de facto NFC West championship game. The three teams at the top of the division are locked into the first, fifth and sixth seeds, with Week 18’s games determining who falls where.
The Panthers can only enter the playoffs as the fourth seed. They earn that by being a division champion with the worst record amongst division champions. The fourth seed plays the fifth seed in the wild-card round of the playoffs. That means they will play the wild-card team with the best record, which this season equates to the team that earns second place in the NFC West. That could be any of the Seahawks, 49ers, or Rams. The third wild-card team, the Green Bay Packers, can finish 10-6-1 at best and thus cannot overtake the Rams for the 6th team even with a Packers win and a Rams loss this weekend.
Any of these potential wild-card match ups will also be regular season rematches for the Panthers. The Panthers went 1-3 against the entire NFC West this season and 1-2 against these specific opponents. The good news for the Panthers is that they played the Seahawks and the 49ers closely in the first half to three quarters of their games. Conventional wisdom holds that it is hard to beat a team twice in the NFL in the same season. Conventional wisdom would also hold that the NFC West is generally playing a different class of football when compared to the NFC South.
I’m not convinced I have a favorite wild-card opponent for the Panthers. Part of me thinks the Seahawks because that game was close due to a perfect gameplan that the Panthers could be ready for a second time and without the need for the incredible turnover luck that they saw against the Rams and the 49ers. Part of me says it doesn’t matter because the Panthers are going to be in and out with a quick “just honored to be here.”
For those of you who do have a favored opponent, here are your scenarios that see the Panthers facing each team in the wild-card round of the 2025 NFL playoffs. Remember that any Panthers wild-card game will be played in Charlotte.
The Seattle Seahawks
If the 49ers BEAT the Seahawks then the Panthers will play Seattle.
The San Francisco 49ers
If the Seahawks BEAT OR TIE the 49ers AND the Cardinals BEAT OR TIE the Rams then the Panthers will play the 49ers
The Los Angeles Rams
If the Seahawks BEAT the 49ers AND the Rams BEAT the Cardinals then the Panthers will play the Rams
When will this happen?
The Panthers are up first against the Bucs on Saturday afternoon. A win against Tampa and Carolina will know that they are hosting an NFC West team in a week. Saturday night has the Seahawks at 49ers games. A 49ers win sends the Panthers to bed knowing their opponent will be the Seattle Seahawks. A Seahawks win extends the question pending the result of the 4:25 PM ET game between the Cardinals and the Rams in Los Angeles.
The NFC West will know definitively who wins the NFC South as early as Saturday evening and as late as Sunday afternoon, while second place in the West could well take a bit longer to sort out. Regardless, the full NFC playoff field will be set by kickoff of Sunday Night Football, when the AFC North will be decided between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
