TAMPA, Fla. -- At 2-4 and on a three-game skid, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have dug themselves into a pretty deep hole.

Head coach Dirk Koetter acknowledged this, saying, "No one is coming to save us. We dug in. We've got to dig out."

The Bucs sit in last place in the NFC South and are two games behind the first-place New Orleans Saints, but they have an opportunity to gain ground when divisional play gets underway this weekend. The Carolina Panthers come to town, then the Bucs head off to New Orleans.

"Every game is an opportunity. We've got a big opportunity coming up," cornerback Brent Grimes said. "Things aren't going how we wanted to, obviously. But when you look at [the division] ... It's close right now."

Through seven weeks, there have been three divisional leaders -- four if you count the Bucs going 1-0 in Week 2 after a Week 1 bye. The Atlanta Falcons started off 3-0 but are now 3-3; the Panthers started 2-0 and are now 4-3; the Saints have overcome an 0-2 start to win four straight games and sit atop the division.

If the season ended after Week 7, the Saints would be in the playoffs, with the Panthers and Falcons just missing out as the seventh and eighth seeds. The most interesting thing about all this? There has been only one divisional game played in the NFC South -- the Saints and Panthers in Week 3. No other division has had such an odd scheduling quirk.

"I showed the guys the division standings and we are what we've earned to this point," Koetter said. "The fact that some other teams got beat in our division is in our favor. It is a factor [that] we have not played division games and those games can move you up fast. We have to play better football as a team. We have to coach better football. You've got to get one. You've just got to get one win.”

Since the NFC South was created in 2002, divisional winners have averaged 4.4 losses per season, while wild-card qualifiers averaged 5.3, so there's not much wiggle room.

"We can either lay down, or we can fight back. We've got 10 games left. We've got a tough team," wide receiver Mike Evans said. "We don't care who the opponents are. We've just got to win. Every week, we've got to win. Each week, we've got to go in, have a great week of preparation, we've got to start fast, especially on offense. We start way too slow on offense. We've got to pick that up."

As last year showed, reaching the playoffs after a three-game losing streak is not an insurmountable task. The Detroit Lions, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers and Houston Texans all lost three straight games during the season and made the playoffs. The Lions actually had two three-game losing streaks. The Steelers, Packers and Texans all went on to win their divisions.

Since the 2014 season, teams who made the playoffs were a combined 153-62-1 in division games, according to ESPN Stats & Information. That averages to about 4.25 wins per team and 1.72 losses in the division. The Bucs went 4-2 in the NFC South last year but didn't reach the playoffs, while the Giants and Miami Dolphins both did.

There are exceptions to that, however. The Lions, Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders all went 3-3 in their division last year and still made the playoffs, and the Seattle Seahawks went 3-2-1.

The Bucs have to take care of their own business though, and that starts with the shift toward a more positive mindset and controlling what they can -- stopping the run, getting off the field on third down and limiting the explosive plays on defense; and starting faster, avoiding costly penalties and scoring in the red zone on offense.

"Obviously we're in a losing streak. You never want it to go that way. You've got to look past it," Grimes said. "We've got to learn from it, we've got to learn from these [last three] games, figure out what we're doing wrong and improve. ... It's not overly complicated. We've just got to play better."

Added linebacker Kwon Alexander: "It ain't over with. It's never over with in the league. But we've got to get our mindset set to 'winning.' That's it. Everybody has to fall in love with the game and have fun for us to win."