The Atlanta Falcons (13-2) will face off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-9) on Sunday in the final week of the regular season. No matter what the outcome of the matchup is on the gridiron, the Falcons will still end up sporting the NFC's best record.

However, given the club's lack of playoff execution under coach Mike Smith and quarterback Matt Ryan, the NFC South leaders certainly would prefer to head into the postseason fresh off a victory.

With Smith at the helm, the Falcons are 0-3 lifetime in the playoffs. In the last postseason, the team was dominated by the New York Giants 24-2 in the wild-card round. The prior year, the No. 1-seeded Falcons were defeated 48-21 by the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round.

In terms of its Green Bay playoff loss, Smith felt his club was overworked going into the respective matchup since Atlanta only had three days off at that point.

"We'll handle it differently with our workload and the days that we're going to work during our bye week and what our schedule will be. We're not going to do anything like we did the last time," he told ESPN.

On another positive note, signal-caller Ryan is just one passing touchdown short of setting the Falcons' franchise record with 32 of them. Smith thinks the quarterback is coming off the best back-to-back game performances of his career.

"We're going to play the game to win. That's how we're going to approach it. All games are important, and in terms of the importance, does it have no bearing? It really does because we want to win every time we go out and play," Smith added.

CLICK HERE to watch the Atlanta Falcons take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers via free live stream. Coverage of the NFL game is set to begin at 1 p.m. EST.

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