Panthers bring statistical oddity into playoff clash with Rams

This Saturday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium, the Carolina Panthers will host a playoff contest for the first time since Cam Newton and company blew out the Arizona Cardinals, 49-15, in the 2015 NFC Championship Game.

Although Dave Canales’s team dropped its final two regular-season games, including last Saturday’s 16-14 setback at Tampa to the Buccaneers, the 8-9 Panthers are NFC South champions, and will actually be making their first postseason appearance since 2017.

This week’s first-round opponent is the Los Angeles Rams. Sean McVay’s club finished 12-5 and in second place in the NFC West, with four more wins than Carolina. However, Canales’s club is a division champion, and will host the wild card Rams. It’s actually the second time in four seasons that an NFC South champion finished 8-9, which was the case for the 2022 Buccaneers.

Meanwhile, this is also the second time that the Panthers have won this division with a sub-.500 record. In the midst of a three-year run which saw then-head coach Ron Rivera lead the club back-to-back-to-back first-place finishes, Carolina endured a troubling 2014 campaign which resulted in a 7-8-1 finish. That team opened with a pair of victories, won just one of its next 10 games (1-8-1), then closed out the season with four consecutive victories.