• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Panthers look to clinch NFC South

Dec 23, 2008 - 4:28 PM Carolina (11-4) at New Orleans (8-7), 1:00 pm EST

NEW ORLEANS (Ticker) -- For the Carolina Panthers, Sunday's regular-season finale at New Orleans could be the difference between a No. 2 and No. 5 seed in the postseason.

The Panthers (11-4) missed a chance to secure home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs with last week's 34-28 overtime loss to the New York Giants.

Carolina, which dropped to just 3-4 on the road, surrendered 301 yards on the ground, including 215 by Derrick Ward, and squandered a 21-10 lead.

Now the Panthers (11-4) try again to clinch their first NFC South title in five years. With a victory, they will wrap up the No. 2 seed along with a first-round bye and assure themselves a home game in the divisional round of the playoffs.

That could be important for Carolina's playoff hopes as it was the only team in the NFL to go 8-0 at home this season.

"He (Panthers coach John Fox) said sometimes it takes a step back like this late in the year to kind of catapult you through the playoffs," Carolina tackle Jordan Gross. "We know we're in. There is a lot we can learn from this. We definitely didn't play our best football and took it down to overtime with these guys (Giants). I think we can learn a lot and improve as a team."

However, to assure themselves a division title, Carolina must do what no NFC South team has done this year - win on the road in a division game. NFC South teams are 11-0 at home in division contests.

Should the Panthers lose, Atlanta (10-5) can steal the NFC South title by beating the St. Louis Rams. The Falcons would own the tiebreaker based on a better conference record.

In that case, Carolina would fall to the No. 5 seed and play on the road in the wild card round of the playoffs.

While the Saints (8-7) are looking for a winning season, they were eliminated from the playoffs despite a 42-7 win at Detroit last week.

Drew Brees has an outside shot to break Dan Marino's NFL record for most passing yards in a season, but he needs 402 yards against the Panthers. Marino threw for 5,084 yards in 1984.

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," Brees said. "I'm trying not to think about it as much as possible. It's hard to do because everybody wants to talk about it, but we'll see."

Brees was held to 231 yards in a 30-7 loss at Carolina in Week Seven. The seven points were the fewest the Saints have scored in a game this season.

Carolina quarterback Jake Delhomme threw a pair of touchdowns to improve to 7-2 against his former team.