Host Buccaneers can clinch division by beating Carolina

TAMPA — Forget Sam Darnold. For the purposes of this conversation, you can forget Tom Brady too.

There is only one realistic scenario that allows the Carolina Panthers to win Sunday and potentially torpedo Tampa Bay’s playoff hopes. And that’s if they steamroll the Bucs.

If their offensive line traps, confuses, misdirects and otherwise abuses the Tampa Bay front seven with their running game, just as it did last week against Detroit and has done in virtually every one of the team’s victories this season.

Carolina has one formula for winning, and it does not involve a lot of passing. In every game when they have been forced to throw more than 25 times, the Panthers have lost.

That’s 0-7, if you’re counting, which makes sense if you’ve gone from Baker Mayfield to P.J. Walker to Darnold at quarterback.

In an era when teams are throwing the ball more than ever, the Panthers have gone the opposite direction. Since Steve Wilks took over as interim head coach in mid-October, only a handful of offenses have kept the ball on the ground more than Carolina — and those teams have running quarterbacks.

The Panthers and Ravens are the only offenses in the NFL with three different running backs who have topped 375 yards in 2022.

That might explain why Bucs defensive line coach/run game coordinator Kacy Rodgers had a to-go box so he could work through lunch in his office after a midweek practice.

“Makes my stomach hurt,” Rodgers joked about watching video of Carolina’s game against Detroit.

The Panthers rushed for a franchise record 320 yards that afternoon, with running backs D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard both going over 100 yards in the

RICK SCUTERI /AP Tampa Bay’s William Gholston (92), who had a key fumble recovery in the Buccaneers’ OT victory at Arizona on Christmas, and his defensive teammates will face a big challenge from Carolina’s rushing attack.