The Carolina Panthers are not off to a great start for the 2024 NFL season, to say the least. While their embarrassingly one-sided loss against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday wasn’t how any Panthers fan wanted to start the season, hope is not all lost. There are a few fundamental pivots that the team can make that can still turn the tide in their favor come playoff season.
Carolina Panthers Stumble In New Orleans
Look, I won’t sugarcoat it. The Panthers’ game against New Orleans this past weekend was, for lack of a better term, a stinkfest. In just the first 5 minutes alone the Saints managed to score 10 points against Carolina’s directionless defense.
Any theories that the Panthers were just shaking off the cobwebs were dashed as the first half continued. A pitiful defense was matched by an almost nonexistent offensive strategy, with Panthers QB Bryce Young throwing an interception on his very first play of the game.
A 2nd quarter fumble from Panthers WR Jonathan Mingo didn’t help matters either. It was only thanks to a last-second field goal that Carolina managed to get some points on the board to close out the first half.
In what would be the Panthers’ only touchdown of the game, Young took advantage of an opening at the 3-yard line to charge into the endzone. But alas, it was too little too late to the fledgling franchise as the Saints continued to walk all over Carolina’s defense, mercifully ending the game(?) with a final score of 47-10.
How To Fix This Team
This crushing loss is the culmination of critical mismanagement and on-the-field miscalculations that has plagued the Panthers franchise since the halcyon days of 2015. After an utterly humiliating 2-15 season last year, it’s easy to see why many Panthers fans and haters alike are forecasting a sequel to the suckiness.
However, after diligent analysis and painstaking research, I believe I have devised a foolproof way of improving the Panthers 2024 season forecast. Despite the team’s many, many, many, manymanymany…MANY shortcomings, I still believe that there’s a way to salvage it and turn it into a serious playoff contender.
Here are the 3 major changes that will help the Carolina Panthers succeed for the 2024 NFL Season.
1. Score More Points
My research for this article has led me to a startling statistic that revealed that, in the NFL’s entire 100+ year history, the team that scored the most points in a game was declared the winner a whopping 100% of the time. NFL teams can amass points in a variety of ways, but mainly by scoring touchdowns and kicking field goals. I believe this could help the Panthers tremendously when it comes to winning games. Bryce Young had the right idea when he ran the ball in for a touchdown on Sunday, thereby putting some points on the board for Carolina. Unfortunately, he didn’t consider the trickier side of the equation, which was the fact that the other team had more points than them. But if the Panthers can find a way to keep that from happening while they continue scoring points, they will be well on their way to success.
2. Win The Super Bowl
It’s a long-held belief by many NFL fans that the team who wins the Super Bowl (often referred to as the WrestleMania of football) is considered one of the best teams in the league. Think of how greatly it would improve people’s perception of the Panthers if the team actually won one of those. Granted, they came close a couple times, most notably during their 2003 and 2015 seasons. But, for a variety of reasons that I can only imagine are due to backstage politicking, the losing Super Bowl teams aren’t celebrated nearly as much as the winning ones. So if Carolina wants their time in the sun, they’re gonna have to claw their way to a Super Bowl win or two or six. This should be fairly easy since that’s just one game of the entire year they would have to win, statistically granting them a better shot at victory. And it should be even easier if they stick to my patented “Score More Points” stratagem.
3. Date Taylor Swift
Here’s another surprising statistic I’ve gathered in my research: 100% of NFL teams with a player who was actively dating music megastar Taylor Swift went on to win the Super Bowl that same season. This may be a more unconventional strategy, but the results speak for themselves. If Carolina wants to turn this season around, one of the Panthers’ most eligible bachelors has to shoot their shot and slide into those DMs. Granted, this could prove difficult since Swift is still in a committed relationship with Kansas City Chiefs TE Travis Kelce. However, if rumors of the couples’ alleged “break-up contract” are to be believed, that may change sooner than later. If they pull it off, this could be a better grab for the franchise than any #1 draft pick. If Carolina can harness the power of the Swifties, they can ride that momentum all the way to victory and end their membership in the Tortured Panthers Department.
