NFL playoff picture: What Bucs loss to Dolphins means for NFC standings in Week 17

Sunday result: Tampa Bay fell to Miami in a 20-17 loss on Sunday, marking the team’s fourth straight loss late in the season. The good news for them is that Carolina also fell on Sunday in a 27-10 loss to Seattle. That result officially sets up a winner-take-all battle between the Panthers and Buccaneers for the NFC South title in Tampa next Sunday.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers head into the final two weeks of the season with the potential to control their own destiny. There are various issues at play, but if they can win out, they’ll reach the playoffs. More on their playoff picture below.

In the meantime, they travel to South Florida on Sunday to face the Miami Dolphins. The game kicks off at 1 p.m. ET on FOX and the Bucs are a 5.5-point favorite.

Tampa comes into this game in a veritable free-fall. They’ve lost three straight and six of their past seven games. The Bucs opened the season 5-1 and seemed all but certain to claim the division for a fifth straight season. Instead, they’ve fallen apart and are coming off a brutal 23-20 loss to the Panthers in Charlotte that dropped them to 7-8.

They face a Dolphins squad that has struggled to get fully on track. After opening the season 1-6, it looked like they might have a chance to turn things around. They won five of their next six games to improve to 6-7 and sit just outside the final wild card berth. However, they followed that up with back-t0-back losses to the Steelers and Bengals to drop to 6-9 and eliminate themselves from playoff contention.

The Bucs are one game back of the Panthers in the NFC South standings. The division title is the only path to the playoffs for both teams, and it could come down to the wire. The Bucs and Panthers face off in Tampa in Week 18. If the Bucs beat the Dolphins or the Panthers lose at home to the Seahawks, Week 18 will be for the division title. If the Bucs lose and the Panthers win, Carolina will clinch the division title.

This game has no impact on the tiebreaker for these two teams. While the Dolphins are a common opponent, the various scenarios guarantee either the Bucs are eliminated in Week 17, they win the tiebreaker against the Panthers in the event of a tie, or the Bucs win the division outright. This is due to the Panthers also playing a common opponent in the Seahawks. The math does not work out in Carolina’s favor if they finish tied with the Bucs after Week 18.