Carolina Panthers: Rationale for Return

Wild card teams do win Super Bowls. It happens and has happened since 2000, but it is not the safest way to get to a Super Bowl healthy. Playing three intensity games versus two is a difference and you want that bye week.

To win the bye week, you have to be one of the two division champions with the best record. That means that you must own your division. Last year the Panthers did most of that with a 5-1 record in the division. Tampa Bay was too young. The Saints couldn’t pull it out of two closer games. Atlanta did get their one win against the Panthers on the strength of the Atlanta jinx.

This year the NFC South should be tougher, but the Panthers will still have to dominate it to secure a bye. Tampa’s Jameis Winston will be a year better, but the Buccaneers reconfigured their head coach and it is not clear how the team will respond to that. The Bucs are also probably the least important team in the division for the Panthers, since one of the two games in Week 17 where the Panthers might be resting players if all goes to plan.

I looked at Drew Brees cap number and thought the Saints were going to blow it up this off season. They did not do that. Instead they signed some younger legs in the receiver corps and drafted a safety. Therefore the jury is still out on the Saints. Brees was injured part of last year and that likely derailed some of the team’s hopes. The Panthers get the Saints on two shorter weeks. There are a lot of moving parts here.

So the Saints and the Bucs should be a little better but not crazy better than last year. The Falcons are somewhere in the same boat. They traded out Roddy White for Muhammad Sanu, but the idea didn’t change. They still have to prove they can protect Matt Ryan. There is still the stupid just throw the ball up and just maybe Julio Jones will come down with it. Devonta Freeman plays Panthers football, and so he really shouldn’t scare the team.

Next: Newton