The Carolina Panthers’ bye week was one of the team’s best weeks this season. With the exception of NO topping a crippled Tampa Bay bunch, just about every single game broke the right way for the Panthers. The NFC is now a knot of sloppy 4-4 teams, with the chance that Seattle will join them tonite should Oakland show up.
Even the Bears and Giants have looked very weak at times this year, and the Panthers have already beaten NO once. The upshot is that the NFC is wide open, but not if Carolina plays like it did the first half of the season. First up, of course, is clocking the Bucs next Monday night. From there it is on to dispatching a flawed Ram team on a short week, but at home.
A 6-4 Panthers team would then face five more NFC teams in the final six weeks of the season. That is called controlling your own destiny. Let’s see if John Fox and his players embrace that.
