TAMPA, Fla. — Panthers head coach Dave Canales has said since Day 1 that he's "looking for us."

The thing he saw Sunday was not them.

After a 48-14 loss at Tampa Bay in the next to last game of the season to fall to 4-12, there's a limit on how much can be said.

But the rookie head coach summed it up by looking across the board. It wasn't just a defense that allowed season highs in points allowed and yards (551) or broke the franchise record for points allowed in a season (496) heading into next week's finale at Atlanta.

It was also an offense that was just 2-of-9 (22 percent) on third downs, and ran for a season-low 39 yards. The defense was out there for 74 plays, but the offense managed just 46 snaps. And also a special teams that got a punt blocked for a touchdown.

It was all of them.

"Just sick," Canales began his postgame press conference by saying, summing up the mood of the afternoon.

"Just about finish opportunities, to try to play our type of ball, and in all phases, we got out-played, out-coached," he continued. "I've got to first give credit to the Bucs, they were on fire today and they made it hard for us. We couldn't stay out there offensively; defensively couldn't get off the field, and the big blocked punt for another touchdown is huge. So, in all phases, it's stuff that we've all got to carry together.

"And we've got one more opportunity to finish, so we have to regroup; we have to have the discipline to go right back to work and finish on our terms."

That one more opportunity is next week in the regular season finale in Atlanta. After that game figures to come an offseason of continuing to build, especially on the defensive side of the ball.

Few people have been out there for all of it, but veteran safety Xavier Woods has. He's played every snap this season, and had played more snaps than any player in the league entering Week 17. The problem was, he was out there Sunday with a lot of guys he may or may not have recognized. They were starting their fifth and sixth inside linebackers of the season in a defense that begins with two. They were starting replacements at every level and four guys who entered the league as undrafted rookies.

This was not an ideal situation.

"Whoever's out there, I'm ready to go to war with those guys, whoever's out there, it doesn't matter who's out there," Woods said, and it's the kind of thing you have to say.

But at a certain point, the constant turnover on that side of the ball that began in Week 1 with Derrick Brown's season-ending knee injury and has continued has kept them from being competitive.

"Whoever's out there, we've got to hold the rope; we've got to stand up, reset, and we've got to hold up our end and play, which we haven't done as a collective, not just a new guy coming in it or maybe a guy that's been here. We all haven't held up our end."

Veteran defensive end Jadeveon Clowney said last week that the Panthers were going to learn about each other down the stretch. And that makes for a hard evaluation, a day when the Panthers reached seventh on the league's all-time points allowed list.

But he also wasn't pointing fingers or questioning effort, saying he wanted to be here to help fix things. But he did say they were "missing too many tackles" and making other tangible mistakes. He was in the training room when Canales addressed the team but gave a nearly word-for-word summation of his coach when asked what you can say after one like this.

"We've got to finish," Clowney said. "That wasn't who we are and y'all know we've got to go back to work and prepare. We've got another week that's going to still try to figure out about guys and tell you about guys.

So, in my eyes, they're evaluating, and I want to be on the good side of the evaluation. So I can go out there and play hard. I don't care about no record, no score, none of that really. I'm going to play hard; that's what I'm going do."

Again, effort wasn't the question, though Woods admitted they were "flat" early in the game as the Bucs raced out to scores on their first five possessions. But other than some brief moments late this year, when they got some stops against the Chiefs and Bucs at home and the Eagles on the road, this defense has consistently ranked at the bottom of the league.

"We didn't give ourselves a chance," Woods said.

And that's the tough part for a team that has tried to establish an identity in its first year under Canales and general manager Dan Morgan — and in some ways has.

They generally run well and protect well, but with Chuba Hubbard going on injured reserve Saturday and right tackle Taylor Moton missing this week, that kind of personality was absent. A team that started the year with what now seems an uncharacteristic 47-10 loss at New Orleans bookended it with a similar game. They're 1-4 in the NFC South with one to play.

"Yeah, we've got our work cut out for us," Canales admitted. "We've got a long way to go from a progress standpoint. We've seen growth in a lot of areas. We've got to be able to play this division tough, and we have to be able to match up with these guys, offensively, defensively, and all those things.

"And so this is the litmus test, it starts with the division, and this is a really tough division in terms of just playing the Buccaneers, especially when they're finding their good ball, but we have to be able to finish and find our good ball late in the season."

It was not the finish he's looking for. They have one more week to search.

"Because of the way we want to finish, the way we want to find our ball, and that to me is really we're working so hard to become the best that we can become," Canales continued. "And that's always going to be the goal for us, regardless of what the situation and the season is, and so to go in there to talk to the guys and look at them we got one more opportunity to finish on our terms to finish the way we want to, that's the challenge for us. That's the challenge to go back to this week and attack it and finish the right way."

They know what they have to do. They have one more chance to do it.

"That just wasn't our brand of football, and you know, we have to own that," quarterback Bryce Young said. "We have to be ready to correct it, and we talk about finish all the time; we didn't finish the way we wanted to as a team.

"So we all just have to look in the mirror; have pride about that. We're blessed to have one more opportunity next week, and you know, we have to be a lot better."