It wasn’t always pretty, but the Carolina Panthers emerged from the 2025 regular season as the NFC South champions.
After losing three of their final four games to close out the regular season, the Panthers clinched their fist division title in 10 years last Sunday by way of a complex divisional tiebreaker.
Carolina, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons, finished with identical 8-9 records, but ultimately took the NFC South crown thanks to their superior three-way head-to-head records against the other two teams.
After getting some help in Week 18, the Panthers did just enough during the regular season to win the NFC South and clinch their spot in the Wild Card round, where they will host the Los Angeles Rams on Saturday afternoon to kick off the NFL postseason.
Excluding the strike-shortened 1982 season, this marks just the fifth time in NFL history that a team with a sub-.500 record has qualified for the playoffs. Of those five teams, three have clinched their spot by winning the NFC South.
The Panthers enter play on Saturday as heavy underdogs, with FanDuel Sportsbook currently offering Carolina’s money line odds at +480, suggesting an implied probability of an upset win at just 17.24 per cent.
Carolina has already defeated the Rams earlier in the season, forcing three turnovers from Matthew Stafford in a tight 31-28 victory in Week 13.
Bryce Young threw for 206 yards and three scores against the Rams, posting at the highest passer-rating of his career at 147.1, to help the Panthers halt Los Angeles’ six-game winning streak.
While the Panthers likely have their work cut out for them in the Wild Card, history suggests that sub-.500 teams might fare better than one would expect in the playoffs.
Here is a look at the four teams in NFL history that have qualified for the playoffs with losing records during full seasons, and how their seasons came to be.
2010 Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks became the first team in NFL history to make the playoff with a losing record during a full season win their division, going 7-9 over the regular season to take the NFC West for the fifth time in franchise history.
This season marked Pete Carroll’s first as Seattle’s head coach after he made the jump back to the NFL after leading USC to two national championships as part of a nine-year tenure with the Trojans.
Carroll, alongside veteran passer Matt Hasselbeck, led the Seahawks back to the playoffs for the first time since 2007.
Coming into the Wild Card round as the No. 4 seed in the conference, the Seahawks would play host to the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints in the opening round of the playoffs, who finished at 11-5 for the fifth seed.
With Seattle leading 34-30 in the fourth quarter and looking to pull off the miraculous upset, Hasslbeck handed the ball off to running back Marshawn Lynch, who broke nine tackles on his way to the end zone for a miraculous 67-yard touchdown.
The play - later nicknamed ‘The BeastQuake’ for the subsequent celebration by Seahawks fans in attendance that registered as 2.0 magnitude tremor on the Richter scale - all but put the game away for the Seahawks, who would go onto win the 41-36 contest.
Seattle would advance to the Divisional Round for a meeting against the Chicago Bears, where they would eventually fall 35-24.
The Seahawks would go onto miss the playoff altogether in 2011, but would be back in 2012 to begin the ‘Legion of Boom’ era in Seattle that saw the team reach two Super Bowls, including a title in SB XLVIII.
2014 Carolina Panthers
Four seasons later, the Panthers joined the Seahawks as the only teams in NFL history to win their divisions with a losing record, going 7-8-1 over the course of the regular season for the NFC South crown.
Carolina had been coming off of their first playoff appearance with star quarterback Cam Newton at the helm in 2013, with Ron Rivera taking home Coach of the Year honours at the conclusion of that season.
In 2014, the Panthers appeared to pick up right where they left off last season and were sitting at 2-0 to begin the new campaign.
Three weeks later, Carolina had fallen to 3-2-1, and things would spiral even further with six straight losses.
The Panthers would rattle off four consecutive wins to close their season, and just edged out the Saints for the top spot in the division as they became the first team in NFC South history to win back-to-back division titles.
The late-season surge set up a Wild Card matchup against the 11-5 Arizona Cardinals, where Newton would throw for 198 yards, two touchdowns, and an interception to help the Panthers pick up their first playoff win since 2005.
Carolina’s defence, led by second-year linebacker Luke Kuechly, held the Falcons to just 78 yards in the victory, which still stands as the lowest total in NFL single-game playoff history.
The Panthers’ run would end in the Divisional Round with a 13-6 loss to the Seahawks on a late touchdown catch by TSN’s Luke Willson in the dying moments of the fourth quarter.
One season later, the Panthers would finish the regular season at 15-1 and would reach Super Bowl 50, where they would fall to the Broncos in Peyton Manning’s final game before retirement.
2020 Washington Commanders
After Ron Rivera’s departure from the Panthers organization midway through the 2019 season, the veteran coach was hired to be 30th head coach in Washington’s franchise history where he would once again lead a sub-.500 team to the playoffs.
Rivera’s tenure with the then-Washington Football Team got off to a poor start with a 2-7 record, but the team rallied with five wins over their final seven games to clinch the NFC East title and book their spot in the playoffs.
Quarterback Alex Smith returned to action following a career-threatening leg fracture suffered two season prior, and helped lead the team back into the playoffs for the first time in four seasons.
Washington would be faced with a matchup against future first-ballot Hall of Fame Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card, and would be without Smith in the contest due to a hamstring strain.
Taylor Heinicke would assume the role of Washington’s starting quarterback in the Wild Card game in Smith’s absence, and threw for 303 yards with a touchdown and interception, also adding another score on the ground in the Wild Card game against Tampa Bay.
His efforts would not be enough to knock off the Buccaneers, who would go on to win 31-23 in the opening round of the playoffs.
Tampa Bay would then beat the Saints, Green Bay Packers, and Kansas City Chiefs to close out the playoffs, winning their second Super Bowl title in franchise history.
After both the 2010 Seahawks and 2014 Panthers were able to win a playoff game after getting in with a losing record, the 2020 Commanders were unable to continue the trend of Wild Card victories.
2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The 2022 season for the Buccaneers began with Brady announcing his retirement in February, before abruptly reversing his decision just 40 days later.
Bruce Arians then announced his retirement as the team’s head coach in March, with defensive coordinator Todd Bowles being promoted to take over the head coaching duties.
That news was followed up by tight end Rob Gronkowski’s retirement as the team navigated through a change-filled offseason ahead of the 2022 campaign.
Brady’s first two seasons in Tampa Bay culminated in a Super Bowl title and a razor-thin loss to the Rams in the Divisional Round.
After seven championships, the three-time MVP went back under centre for his 23rd season in the NFL as the Buccaneers chased another deep playoff run.
Tampa Bay’s season never quite got off the ground, and were stuck in the middle of the pack for the majority of the year.
Sitting at 6-8 heading into Week 16, the Bucs won two of their final three games and would sneak into the playoffs as NFC South champions for the second consecutive year.
Tampa Bay would host the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card, and would fall 31-14 in what was the last game of Brady’s storied career.
Dallas would jump out to a 24-0 lead over Tampa Bay in the contest, with Dak Prescott finishing with five total touchdowns to outduel Brady and eliminate the Buccaneers from the playoffs.
