The Carolina Panthers’ Week 11 win against the Atlanta Falcons should be considered ‘big’ when viewed through multiple different angles. Carolina likely heard all week about being a fraudulent .500 team and not a threat after the home loss to the lowly New Orleans Saints. Players in the locker room spoke about not preparing to their own set standard. From an analytical lens, the 30-27 overtime victory has a significant impact on the team’s future outlook.
How Did the Week 11 Panthers’ Win Impact Their Playoff Chances?
The Carolina Panthers are now 6-5 through eleven games. They sit just a half-game back of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-4) for the NFC South division lead. Tampa Bay lost on Sunday to the Buffalo Bills, while Carolina extended the distance between themselves and the Atlanta Falcons (3-7).
Using PFSN’s proprietary Playoff Predictor analytics, Carolina entered Week 11 with a 24.20% chance to make the NFL Playoffs, 13.30% to win the division, 0.40% to win the Super Bowl, and 0.20% to earn the NFC No. 1 seed for the postseason.
Following Sunday’s 4 p.m. slate of Week 11 games, the Panthers now have a 38.40% chance to qualify for the playoffs, up from 24.20% before their win over Atlanta. This means the Panthers’ playoff chances rose by 14.20 percentage points as a result of their victory and the outcomes of other games.
Carolina also now has a 26.50% chance of being the NFC South champion at the end of the season. Closing the gap with the Buccaneers, while stepping on the Falcons’ head to push them further down as a byproduct of the Panthers’ climb, resulted in a 13.50% bump in predictive likelihood to achieve that goal.
The Panthers are one of 23 teams with odds in PFSN’s model to win the Super Bowl. So, having a 0.40% shot at the Lombardi Trophy isn’t a massive development. However, the win did increase the chances to four times better than the previous 0.10%.
Carolina travels to San Francisco for a Monday Night Football primetime game against the 49ers (7-4) in Week 12. In Week 13, they play at home in Charlotte, North Carolina, against the Los Angeles Rams (8-2) before the teams’ Week 14 bye.
Three of the last four regular-season weeks feature divisional matchups with big playoff implications. These include both meetings with the division-leading Buccaneers in the last three weeks.