The Carolina Panthers are 3-0 to start the 2021 season, the fifth time in franchise history they’ve hit that mark. It’s worked out quite well previously.
With their win over the Texans on Thursday Night Football, the Carolina Panthers are now the first team in the NFL to reach 3-0 on the young 2021 season. With Houston now added to the list of wins that includes victories over the Jets and Saints, Matt Rhule’s club is sitting pretty and has to be feeling confident in what Sam Darnold and this defense can do moving forward.
History is also on the side of the Panthers as well.
This is just the fifth time in franchise history that Carolina has started a regular season with a 3-0 record. In three of the four previous instances, the organization made it to the NFC Championship Game with a 7-9 finish in 2002 being the only exception. And in two of those seasons, most recently in 2015, the Panthers went on to play in the Super Bowl.
Will history repeat itself with the Panthers making the Super Bowl?
Few people would’ve pegged Carolina as a potential Super Bowl contender heading into the 2021 NFL season. All told, the people who had the Panthers just making the playoffs were few and far between. But with Sam Darnold panning out well early and with a 3-0 start, this team is already surpassing expectations.
With that said, this club does seemingly have some roadblocks ahead. For one, the win over the Texans saw Carolina lose Christian McCaffrey to a hamstring injury and standout rookie cornerback Jaycee Horn to a broken foot. Both of those losses could be costly for their respective sides of the ball.
On top of that, the schedule will toughen up for the Panthers moving forward after playing two bottom-feeders in the Jets and Texans along with a Saints team that was without eight assistant coaches and still breaking in a new quarterback. They face the Cowboys, Eagles and Vikings in their next three games, all of which present bigger challenges than the ones they’ve faced.
Still, the Carolina Panthers are a far more formidable team than most would’ve projected, especially with what was the best defense in the NFL through two weeks. History says they’ll at least make the NFC Championship Game but we’ll have to see if they follow that trend.