Todd Bowles: Our confidence is high, but our execution is lacking

Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles ripped his team's performance in a Week 15 loss to the Falcons as inexcusable and said late in the week that he thought the team got the message about what needed to change heading into Sunday's game against the Panthers.

The message may have been received, but the result wasn't any better. The Bucs gave up a lead with seven seconds to play in the first half when Panthers quarterback Bryce Young beat a blitz by throwing to wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan, who had gotten behind cornerback Jamel Dean and into the end zone. The Bucs took the lead back in the third quarter, but Young evaded pass rushers to find tight end Ja'Tavion Sanders for another score and the Panthers wound up taking a 23-20 lead with 2:20 left to play.

The Bucs' chances of coming back evaporated when quarterback Baker Mayfield and wide receiver Mike Evans failed to get on the same page on a pass that Panthers safety Lathan Ransom picked off to seal the win. The Bucs also committed eight penalties en route to their sixth loss in seven games, which fit with the theme of self-inflicted wounds that Bowles focused on after the game.

"The biggest thing is our confidence is good, camaraderie is good and that's high but that's not enough right now," Bowles said, via the team's website. "It's the execution that we're lacking and missing a few things here or there. We shot ourselves in the foot enough today to lose this ballgame by three. And we understand that . . . we definitely understand that. We've got to take it one day at a time and, again, I think the guys are accountable, the coaches are accountable. We're going to load up, we're going to come back Monday and hopefully in two weeks we get a chance to see them again and play for something."

The Bucs face the Dolphins next week while the Panthers square off with the Seahawks, so the odds would favor the Bucs still having a chance to win the NFC South in the final game of the regular season. Outside confidence that they can do anything with that opportunity will likely be hard to come by given how many variations on Sunday's postgame comments Bowles has made over the second half of the season, however.