Our 2015 season was the mother of all anomalies

[Sam Mills Fan]

8 minutes ago, Car123 said:

We obliterated the 2nd best team in the conference championship.

Yeah people tend to forget the total emasculation we put on the Seahawks and Cardinals...at least in 3 of those 4 halves.

[Snake]

That team won in spite of a poorly coached offense. McD was also one hell of a good defensive coach. After that year even our mediocre coaches were cherry pick and so was our front end staff. To top it all off JR did JR things like firing DG and replacing him with a yes man in Hurney. We should have rebooted last year but Tepper seems not to care to much about winning right now. 

[Pimpdaddy]

35 minutes ago, thefuzz said:

Flukey sport.

Falcons that lost the SB scored 540 points that season, closest points before that for them was 419.

Chargers go 12-4 in Rivers' first season and it looks like the AFC has a new front runner, never makes it past the divisional round in his career after.

2015 was one of the worst things for this franchise, said it back then, still saying it now.

didnt Schottenheimer get fired after that 12-4 season 

[Sean Payton's Vicodin]

24 minutes ago, Car123 said:

We obliterated the 2nd best team in the conference championship.

...before getting ass blasted by a team led by a geriatric peyton manning who was benched prior for a guy not even in the league anymore. both of which having nothing to do with the SOS.

[Seltzer]

44 minutes ago, Sam Mills Fan said:

My logic is that a good team can bounce back from bad losses, but teams that get utterly brutalized like we did in San Francisco hardly ever make the playoffs.

I don't know about that... the 2003 team got utterly brutalized by the Steve McNair led Titans at home and lost another ugly home game to the Eagles.  We scored some points late to make it more respectable looking that the SF blowout last week, but it was every but as much of a domination.

The magical playoff run that year kind of glosses over the fact the team was far from dominant in the regular season.  Nine out of our eleven wins were by 1 score or less, including 3 wins in OT.  That is a textbook definition of an anomaly. 

We had 3 straight losses to drop our record to 8-5 in December, and at that point we definitely did not look even remotely like a SB team compared to some of the other strong NFC teams that year, namely the Eagles and Rams who were demolishing people.

Objectively speaking, the 2003 Panthers were an incredibly lucky bunch who could have just as easily been 7-9 as 11-5.  It's also true that none of that mattered when we got to the playoffs.  You just have to get there.

A lot can happen in half a season or really a few weeks.  

I'm not even remotely saying this is a SB team or even a playoff team for that matter, but the season is also not over.

We need to win this weekend

[Car123]

16 minutes ago, Sean Payton's Vicodin said:

...before getting ass blasted by a team led by a geriatric peyton manning who was benched prior for a guy not even in the league anymore. both of which having nothing to do with the SOS.

That was an all-time great defense. That Broncos team made the greatest qb of all time look like Jimmy Clausen two weeks prior.

[JARROD]

Easy— that season we had a TEAM— and an attitude.

Josh Norman on defense with an attitude— Oher was pretty good— a decent successor to Gross,.. we had Ted Ginn working miracles, Phily Brown making plays,.. Jonathan Stewart who made that offense sing with an attitude with Cam back there with him.

perfect storm.

afterwards we get rid of Norman,.. there went the defensive attitude right there. Huge loss. I get that Dave drafted a whole secondary in his mind— but the attitude went bye bye.

Stewart goes on the decline and CMAC is lightning but he doesn’t have that type of thunder. Don’t take that as a slight— he’s the best slash back we’ve ever had, has a want to that just won’t stop.

but something changes when you see a guy truck people,.. they put 8 in the box and he hurts them—-

[mc52beast]

Everyone keeps bringing up Ron but not one mention of Dave Gettleman who made some of the worst choices(Byron Bell has LT feet) in Panther history. And then look at who we had as OC.. freaking Mike Shula. Yes Ron kept him around too long.

You guys need to remember that it’s not just Ron who’s responsible for what you see on the field, lots of other people are involved 

[ellis]

4 minutes ago, mc52beast said:

Everyone keeps bringing up Ron but not one mention of Dave Gettleman who made some of the worst choices(Byron Bell has LT feet) in Panther history. And then look at who we had as OC.. freaking Mike Shula. Yes Ron kept him around too long.

You guys need to remember that it’s not just Ron who’s responsible for what you see on the field, lots of other people are involved 

I like Ron personally. But it’s time to start winning more games in the division. This is a big stretch for him coming up, and I’m sorry, you don’t lose seven games in a row under any circumstances and avoid a little more scrutiny.

I was never a big fan of Dave Gettleman. Did a fine job early on, and did horrible work later on. That Matt Kalil contract was unconscionable.

[Mikeybeam11]

Our 2017 first round exit was a underrated year in my opinion. Cam was clutch that year. 

[Eazy-E]

Dave Gettleman got cocky and fuged the team out of any chance of sustaining its newfound success.

The guy destroyed the roster and team chemistry that offseason.

[Mr. Scot]

The 2015 Panthers offense has two historical comparisons.

The structure was basically the same as the offense the Falcons ran in the 2000s with Michael Vick. It was heavily ground based, even including the quarterback as a component of the run game. Passing was included, but primarily as a way to set up the run. Naturally, Ron Rivera was fine with that.

Philosophically, it followed the model Buddy Ryan used when he coached the Eagles. Ryan believed that as long as Randall Cunningham made a couple of big plays a game, his defense could take care of the rest. Rivera had that same belief with Cam Newton, and while he was more successful in that season then Ryan ever was, it wasn't a sustainable model (Wade Phillips and the Falcons proved that).

[GoobyPls]

That was the greatest mvp season in the history of the nfl

 

No other QB in league history would have led that team to the SB. That year Cam overcame bad coaching, extremely difficult scheme, mediocre run support, mediocre protection and god awful WR play 

[hepcat]

What happened after the 2015 season?

1) Many important veteran leaders got old or retired. Jared Allen was a key contributor and retired. Charles Tillman was a big influence on that defense getting as many turnovers as it did, he retired. Cotchery was the leader of the WR group, made several key catches during the season, he got let go. Dwan Edwards was a leader on the D-Line for several seasons,  retired after the season. Charles Johnson was never the same after that season and quickly declined. Roman Harper went back to the Saints. 

2) Many of the players on the 2015 team over-performed. Kurt Coleman, Philly Brown, Kony Ealy, were some of the big ones. Those players quickly came back down to earth in 2016. Even Cam Newton over-performed in 2015. Those players regression to the mean was a big reason the team declined.

3) The team jettisoned an All-Pro CB in Josh Norman, a move that torpedoed confidence on the defensive side of the ball. Roman Harper went back to the Saints, further hurting the secondary.

4) They had one of the worst drafts of the decade in 2016 (except for James Bradberry)

5) Michael Oher had a career ending concussion that blew up the offensive line

It was a perfect storm of success in 2015 followed by a perfect storm of misery in 2016. The team has never truly recovered from that Superbowl loss.