Panthers face Buccaneers in first place battle for NFC South

Tampa Bay is coming to Charlotte to play the Panthers in a key Monday Night Matchup from the NFC South Division. Both teams are tied for the divisional lead with a 9-3 record. However Tampa has the tie breaker advantage since they spanked the Panthers 27 to 3 in game 6 of the 2008 NFL season.

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The Panthers are a better team now than then in some respects. Their offense has improved and the team handles adversity better. Case in point coming back to beat the Packers in the last couple of minutes last week.

But the Bucs are a strong willed physical team of the sort that give the Panthers trouble. Carolina needs to come out early and hitting hard or will be knocked right out of the game.

Carolina’s 12 th ranked passing defense (played worse than that recently) goes up against Tampa Bay’s 12 th ranked passing offense. Carolina has to get pressure on old dude Jeff Garcia to disrupt him. If they give him time to set up and throw he will cut them to pieces. Julius Peppers had a bad game against Tampa earlier this season and was ripped by Charlotte media for a noticeable lack of effort in the game. I look for him to improve on that previous outing and possibly have a huge game.

The Tampa Bay Defense is ranked 4 th in the NFL in points given up,4 th in total yards, 9 th in rushing yards and 3 rd in passing yards. So this plays to Carolina’s offensive strength which is a strong running game.

The Panthers are 7 th in Rushing offense in the NFL in 2008 and have a two headed monster with DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. Carolina needs to keep Tampa from scoring fast. If the game stays close that plays to the Panther’s strong points of running often.

If Tampa gets a fast start like in the previous Bucs Panthers game, then Tampa will probably win. I don’t see Carolina passing on Tampa to come from behind like they did against the injury depleted Packers.

By Randy Inman
ProFootball-fans.com Carolina Panthers Correspondent

For more of Randy's work check out FootballDogz.com where he is the Chief Writer!