Updated NFC Playoff picture after Bucs blow 17-point lead to Bengals

Here’s an updated look at the NFC Playoff Picture and NFC Wild Card standings after the Buccaneers lost again in Week 15 games. 

We are inching closer to a world where a team with a losing record wins the NFC South — again.

It’s not the first time the division has been won by a team that failed to win more games than it lost. Back in 2014 the Carolina Panthers won the NFC South with a 7-8-1 record, and actually managed to get to the NFC Divisional Round.

A lot of things will need to change if the team that wins the NFC South pulls off another run like that. Right now the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in the driver’s seat, but they’re barely holding on. The Bucs had better hope they can hold onto the division better than they held onto a 17-point lead on Sunday. Tampa blew a 17-0 lead to the Cincinnati Bengals, allowing 34 unanswered points to drop its eighth game of the season.

Somehow, despite the embarrassment of this and other losses this year, the Bucs still control their own destiny. If Tampa Bay wins out, it wins the NFC South and hosts a playoff game on Wild Card weekend — likely against the Dallas Cowboys, who had their own issues in Week 15.

But as surprising it will be to have a team with a losing record win a division, it’s even more shocking that it’ll probably be a team that has Tom Brady as its quarterback.

Here’s what the NFL Playoff Picture looks like after the Buccaneers blew a 17-point lead on the same Sunday the Cowboys blew a huge opportunity in Jacksonville. in