It’s a Thursday edition of your Wednesday wraparound.
The Carolina Panthers narrowly lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers thanks to a handful of individual mistakes sprinkled throughout the game. While the end result was frustrating, it ultimately doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. What does matter is that the Panthers have fully and completely graduated from laughing stock to just a regular not good football team.
It’s easy to bask in all the glory that entails and miss what else has happened in the NFL in the last week. That’s where we come in to get you caught up.
NFC South
The Falcons are fading fast
The Buccaneers win over the Panthers moved them to 6-6, which puts them in a tie with the Atlanta Falcons for the division lead. The Falcons hold the head to head tiebreaker over the Bucs, but the two teams are trending in very different directions. The Bucs are trying to rebound from a tough stretch of schedule that coincided with some very team-altering injuries. They seem to be doing that. The Falcons meanwhile have dropped three in a row without much in the way of excuses. That includes a 38-6 drubbing at the hands of the Broncos and a home loss to the Chargers that featured four Kirk Cousins interceptions.
The rest of the NFL
The Ravens suspended Diontae Johnson for their next game
A lot of eyebrows were raised when the Panthers traded away their best receiver to essentially move up about a dozen picks on Day 3 of the 2025 NFL Draft. The assumption that while Johnson is a good receiver, his reputation for being a malcontent is probably affecting his valuation both within the Panthers organization and around the league. Johnson has done nothing to quell those assumptions. He’s been suspended by the Ravens for one game for ‘conduct detrimental to the team’ after refusing to go into Sunday’s game against the Eagles. Even with the minuscule return, it seems the Panthers made the right move getting him out of the locker room.
Christian McCaffrey is possibly done for the season
McCaffrey missed the first couple of months of the season trying to recover from achilles tendinitis. He finally made his season debut on November 10, but after four relatively ineffective showings, he’s back on injured reserve. It’s a PCL injury, and it’s hard to tell what happened. He simply came up gimpy receiving a routine toss in the backfield. We’ve seen McCaffrey bounce back from injury problems in the past. Hopefully he can do it again.
Azeez Al-Shaair ended Trevor Lawrence’s season with one of the dirtiest hits you’ll see and has been suspended three games
Al-Shaair torpedoed into Lawrence while the quarterback was sliding and seemingly knocked him out for a moment. Lawrence left the game on a cart and has since been placed on injured reserve with a concussion. Al-Shaair was apologetic on Monday but seems to be embracing a villain role after his suspension was upheld by the league.
Jameis Winston put up an all time stat line then delivered an all time quote
Winston went into Mile High and put up 32 points on a Broncos defense that has been one of the best in the NFL all season long. In the process, he threw for 497 yards, four touchdowns, and three interceptions. Two of the interceptions were returned for touchdowns of 71 and 44 yards, and the third was run back 56 yards to the two yard line. In all, passes thrown by Jameis Winston that were caught by either team totaled 668 yards. After the game, Jameis asked God for help with his pick sixes.
Another head coach bites the dust
We’ve now seen three head coaches get their walking papers this season. The Jets started the ball rolling with their early season firing of Robert Saleh, who was clearly not the problem. The Saints followed suit by firing Dennis Allen after he dared lose to the Panthers. The Bears became the third team to dismiss their coach, doing so on the Friday after Thanksgiving. They made the move only after letting now former coach Matt Eberflus do his typical day-after-game media availability.
With Eberflus out of the picture, the Bears have named Thomas Brown interim head coach. This completes his unprecedented rise from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator to interim head coach over a span of less than four weeks. Good for Thomas, and I hope he does well for himself in the role.