Cat Scratch Reader
What’s coming down the home stretch
The Carolina Panthers are exiting their bye week with an impossible matchup against one of the best teams in the NFL, the Kansas City Chiefs, awaiting them in Week 12. The two-game winning streak was fun, but it’s not like any sane members of our fanbase were expecting it to continue.
The Panthers haven’t been favored in a single game this season, that certainly didn’t change this week and it realistically isn’t likely to change before the end of the season. Keep an eye on the imploding Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Weeks 13 and 17) and Dallas Cowboys (Week 15) as the few opportunities for that to change or for the Panthers to pull an upset. The remaining games at the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 14, vs the Arizona Cardinals in Week 16, and at the Atlanta Falcons in Week 18 are against legitimate playoff contenders or, at least, teams whose records are currently above .500.
That means the Panthers are expected to finish the season with a 3-14 record. That guarantees a top ten pick, a long look at Bryce Young chasing points, and another long offseason debating what the team should do at quarterback. How exciting.
On the other hand, if we let optimism run unbounded, the Panthers are only three games behind the NFC South leading Falcons. Kirk Cousins has been anything but reliable and a quarterback change to rookie Michael Penix Jr isn’t going to be an immediate fix.
Penix Jr replaced Kirk Cousins yesterday in a loss to the Denver Broncos (38-6) that looked worse than the Panthers own Week 8 loss to that same team. That leaves two likely winnable games left on their schedule when the host the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 15 and visit the New York Giants in Week 16.
The NFC South, nightmare chaos division that it is, will remain in reach, even for the 3-7 Panthers for weeks to come. If they show signs of life against the Chiefs, which is to say if they lose by fewer than three scores against an honest offensive effort by Kansas City, then the Panthers have to be considered real and hilarious contenders for the NFL’s most dubious throne once again.
Now that we have established that the Panthers can make this season exciting, it is important that we close this column by acknowledging that they won’t. The Panthers are not a good team. Set aside that they are getting confident, growing more competent, and returning to health at just the right time, this time simply lacks the depth and experience to contend down the stretch.
The point isn’t that we should be putting stock in their postseason chances or complaining about them ruining their draft position. The point is that the Panthers are enjoyable to watch for the first time since Steve Wilks injected some life into this shambling corpse of a franchise during his brief tenure as interim head coach in 2022. The Panthers...
