We only beat one team with a winning record this season

[Peppers90 NC]

I have been a Panther fan and a football fan long enough to temper my doubts and enthusiasm for this weekend.

Understandable

[gettlemanjack]

... And the two divisional opponents we just blew out in their own domes over the last three weeks beat the Cards, the Steelers, and Packers.

And good for them. Wouldn't it be nice if we also had some wins over good teams other than the now-lousy Cards or freaking Lions (who as someone pointed out earier in the thread only beat one team with a winning record themselves)?

[BIGH2001]

If we won the super bowl there would still be people on here complaining about something.

[BIGH2001]

And good for them. Wouldn't it be nice if we also had some wins over good teams other than the now-lousy Cards or freaking Lions (who as someone pointed out earier in the thread only beat one team with a winning record themselves)?

We had that. It's called 2013 and we were one and done in the playoffs. The point is to get in and anything can happen. Maybe we will get our asses handed to us or maybe we will make a magical run. The point is to be there and give yourself a chance.

[Cary Kollins]

 Gettleman and Rivera screwed upsigning and playing guys that weren't near as good as they thought. It is, however, charming that their goofs worked out in our favor.

 

 

Gettleman's goofs include drafting these rookies and signing these UDFAs that are starting and balling out.

 

 

I hope you're trolling and not this dense.

[gettlemanjack]

We just curb stomped the Falcons who have played pretty well the last few weeks. Our defense may be better than last year.

The Falcons lost their last 6 games except to the lousy Saints and now-lousy Cardinals (.333 win pct over last 6 weeks). And like us, the Falcons also recently stomped the even more-lousy Saints, who got blown out by everyone the last 4 weeks except for the 5-11 Bears and the 2-14 Bucs (who the Saints only beat by 3)

Other than beating those two lousy teams, we got to 4-0 over our last 4 by only beating the god-awful Bucs 19-17 in BOA, and only beating the lousy Browns 17-13 in BOA.

[teeray]

the point was that everyone has youth like we do. It doesn't make us special. As for the Aints, they had a lot more youth than us, and they played their youth all year, we didn't. One of the hardest adjustments players cite from college to pro is adjusting to the much longer NFL season. Their youth was pooped, ours was fresh. And that is a positive for us heading into the playoffs. If that was by design, I'd be impressed, but it was because Gettleman and Rivera screwed upsigning and playing guys that weren't near as good as they thought. It is, however, charming that their goofs worked out in our favor.

My point is after we went to our youth we started to trend upward where as teams that have to turn to youth tend to trend downward.

Like the Saints.

We got better when we had to play younger guys. They got worse

[BIGH2001]

The Falcons lost their last 6 games except to the lousy Saints and now-lousy Cardinals (.333 win pct over last 6 weeks). And like us, the Falcons also recently stomped the even more-lousy Saints, who got blown out by everyone the last 4 weeks except for the 5-11 Bears and the 2-14 Bucs (who the Saints only beat by 3)

Other than beating those two lousy teams, we got to 4-0 over our last 4 by only beating the god-awful Bucs 19-17 in BOA, and only beating the lousy Browns 17-13 in BOA.

I bet the 2008 9-7 Giants and the 8-8 2009 Cardinals wish they had beaten more good teams.

[CRA]

You cleverly left out that we replaced...

Injured, Timid Cam ---> Healthy, Stud Cam

Williams ---> Stewart

Avant ---> Brown

Silatolu ---> Norwell

Chandler ---> Remmers

Cason ---> Benwikere

DeCoud ---> Boston

Rookie Ealy ---> Experienced Ealy & Alexander

We are gonna wreck poo in the playoffs. Get onboard or GTFO. There are no records. You win or go home.

Guys replaced played a brutal schedule of opponents and new guys played weak oppoennts.

Also, I think realistically we see a vision of the past this weekend with WRs struggling to get open.

We also finally have word many feared last week. Ron announcing out the gate Williams will be back. Any snap with Stewart on the sideline makes our O about a fairly weak threat. Stewart not only opens things up he and Cam and compliment each other well in the read option/pass option

I don't think we are wrecking poo this weekend. A close Browns type win would be more realistic

[teeray]

The Falcons lost their last 6 games except to the lousy Saints and now-lousy Cardinals (.333 win pct over last 6 weeks). And like us, the Falcons also recently stomped the even more-lousy Saints, who got blown out by everyone the last 4 weeks except for the 5-11 Bears and the 2-14 Bucs (who the Saints only beat by 3)

Other than beating those two lousy teams, we got to 4-0 over our last 4 by only beating the god-awful Bucs 19-17 in BOA, and only beating the lousy Browns 17-13 in BOA.

 

You do realize that good teams beat bad teams and struggle against good teams, right?  That is how they have good records.  They beat the teams that are not very good, and then split or even struggle against teams that are good.  Then end up 10-6.

 

Seattle won 7 of their 12 games against teams not in the playoffs (2 of those 5 wins came against as you described them now lousy Cardinals, so really 9 of their 12)

 

GB won 9 of their 12 games against teams not in the playoffs

 

Dallas won 10 of their 12 against teams not in the playoffs

 

Denver won 10 of their 12 games against teams not in the playoffs

 

New England won 8 their 12 games against teams not in the playoffs

 

Indy won 9 of their 11 games against teams not in the playoffs

 

SO the, "Yeah we won x number of games but..."  is a dumb argument because it is same for most teams.  The good teams beat the not good teams and that is how they are good teams.  We beat the not good teams, but struggled during the middle of the season against better teams.

 

We also had a pretty tough schedule the first 10 games.  So we could have had a better season, but we did enough to win the division, now all the records are 0-0 and we should all be happy about that and Gettleman did a really fantastic job with his cap limitations

[Jangler]

After we win the SuperBowl all this will go away.

 

 

I can agree with that somewhat, but you know if we were to win the SB, the NFL will change the way teams get into the playoffs so quickly....and it will be called the Panther rule...

[gettlemanjack]

as a reminder, we have had better records than the one we had this year.

1996 - 12-4

1999 - 8-8

2003 - 11-5

2005 - 11-5

2006 - 8-8

2008 - 12-4

2009 - 8-8

2013 - 12-4

People here act like we're the Raiders and are amazed that we had a 7-win season, like we did in 1995, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2012

the only times we failed to get 7 wins in our 20 seasons in franchise history were:

1998 - 4-12

2001 - 1-15

2010 - 2-14

2011 - 6-10

[ed bell]

I guess the real question here is whether or not the folks that have made up their minds that we are a poor team would change their minds and acknowledge that the improvements made during the season have evolved this into a squad worthy of being in the playoffs.

[panthers55]

on our current 4 game win streak, we beat:

7-9 Browns

7 9 Saints

6-10 Falcons

2-14 Bucs

earlier we beat:

11-5 Lions (in Week 2, on the road)

5-11 Bears

2-14 Bucs

and we tied the 10-5-1 Bengals

because of the division we play in, we jumped 7 teams with better records and get to go to the playoffs:

10-6 Eagles

9-7 Houston

9-7 Chiefs

9-7 Chargers

9-7 Bills

8-8 Dolphins

8-8 49ers

Our opponents outscored us 374 to 339 this season, for a neg 35 point differential, which is #23 in the NFL (bottom ten), behind:

155 - Patriots

140 - Seahawks

138 - Packers

128 - Broncos

115 - Cowboys

107 - Ravens

89 - Colts

74 - Eagles

72 - Chiefs

68 - Steelers

65 - Texans

54 - Bills

39 - Lions <-------------we beat them

21 - Bengals <-------------we tied them

15 - Dolphins

11 - Cardinals <-------------not very good

0 - Chargers

neg 18 - Vikings

neg 20 - Giants

neg 23 - Saints <-------------we went 1-1 against them

neg 30 - Rams

neg 34 - 49ers

neg 35 - Panthers

neg 36 - Falcons <-------------we went 1-1 against them

neg 38 - Browns <-------------we beat them

our QB, Cam Newton, is bottom half of the league across the board:

#19 in passing TD (tied with Kyle Orton and Alex Smith)

#21 in passing ypg

#21 in passing yds

#26 in passer rating

we have the #19 scoring offense and the #20 scoring D, both bottom half of the league

so are you sure this is the season you want to proclaim Gettleman a genius? Why not just wait until we are one of the better teams in the league? If/when that happens, you won't have to trip all over yourself trying to make Gettleman look good, we will all already be happy then

are you sure keeping Rivera as our coach is a good idea? And now there are even people coming out praising Shula. Seriously? The guy has been a lousy OC every year he has been an NFL OC, including this year.

We only beat one team with a winning record this season

What was their record when we played them?  If they had a winning record at the time then we beat them, then we beat a team with a winning record.  You also could argue that they had a losing season in part because we beat them in the case of Cleveland who would have finished 8-8 if they beat us.  Same thing with New Orleans.

 

If your premise was that we still sucked and made the playoffs, isn't the goal of the season to make the playoffs.  Since we are in the playoffs, seedings only change whether you play at home or away and who you play.  All those regular season stats are irrelevant.

 

How about one that is relevant.  5 out of 6 teams who won their division with a losing record won their first playoff game.