Expectations Running High.........Now

My what a 3-1 start does. If all the Panthers need is a kicker and eliminate a turnover and couple of penalties to make the play-offs, I'd say that's pretty damn good!

Expectations have soared even with the loss to Green Bay. They played a good game, overcame some mistakes, and battled back to put themselves in a position to win (or OT, which is a position to win).

With the return of Lamar Smith next week, we're probably only a week or two after that from seeing Foster in the line-up. If Moose can get healthy by Dallas, I'd say the Panthers are definately play-off contenders.

They all said New Orleans was the best 3-0 team ever, and the Panthers was the worst. Well, 2 of the 3 teams they beat won Sunday. Detriot whooped the Saints and Baltimore opened up a can on the Broncos. Both play-off caliber teams.

Yeah, maybe Baltimore is figuring it out better now, and Detriot is improved and the Saints took them lightly, or maybe the Panthers ARE a good team. I think so.

I'm not going to get too excited until we play through the Saints and the Bucs, but I think we got a shot at the division.

 

yeah, the division's still where most of the pressure lies. At worst, we could screw up one of these two games. That's 4-2. Not bad. But won't mean a thing if we can't sweep at least one division opponent.

Yeah, expectations should be high. I mean, 3-1 isn't bad. Nearly beating a good team that was kinda hurt isn't bad either. Just hope we're still playing good D whenever we go up against somebody who actually has wide receivers.

 

That and WR depth is a big concern. Thank god we can run it.

People will also go after McDaniel now.

But yeah. My expectations got high all of a sudden.

 

for the panthers to make the playoffs, they will have to win the division. There is only one wild card due to the realignment. SF will win their division easy as will Philly. Either the Bears or Pack will win theirs.

the problem is that the panthers are stuck with 3 other good teams while the other divisions only have one or two good teams...which means the teams in other divisions will be able to sweep a few teams while the panthers will be lucky to sweep one while not being swept. The panthers, bucs, falcons, and saints will beat up on each other...this will keep the wins down in our division. I'd guess the wildcard will either go to GB (who now has a tie-breaker with the panthers) and the Bears, whichever one finishes second.

 

Uhhhh....no. There are two wildcards, not one. Top two division winners get byes.

One of the South teams should make the playoffs. Also, da Bears are reeling a bit right now with injuries at 2 and 2.

 

Looks like the Rams will be staying at home.

 

Actually there is 1 NON-DIVISION winning Wild Card spot.

There is too much football left to even speak WC ATP. In the new alignment ALL the teams MUST think they need to win their division to get to the playoffs. Otherwise they are really hoping for some luck.

Right now, the Panthers and their fans should be thinking about Arizona, not playoff reservations.

 

so, are they not calling the division winner with the worst recrod a "division winner?"

Anayways, my point was that there will only be one team that makes it to the playoffs without winning it's division and it isn't going to be in ours because the teams will beat each other up.

 

I don't think so. There will be TWO, not one, non division winning wild card spots.

4 division winners.

2 Wild cards.

Top 2 division winners get a bye. The bottom two division winners get to play the 2 wildcards.

 

You are correct Snoil about us not looking toward playoffs yet. We have to get better before we can even think about getting to the playoffs, much less winning when we get there.

However you are wrong about the wildcards:

6 teams make the playoff just like always.
4 division winners, 2 wildcards (was 3 div, 3 wilds).

Top 2 div teams get byes fist week and home field advantage for their first p/o game, bottom 2 div winners play first game at home against the 2 wildcard teams. The winners of those games play the top 2 div winners the next week, and so on as usual.

And yeah, our division looks tough right now. We'll beat up on each other. Our only hope(or anyone in our div) to get a wilcard berth is to sweep as much as possible everyone else except maybe the winner, or split w/ winner, etc., obviously.

Another plus, tho, is all the top 3 teams in all the NFC divisions look very evenly matched, and will be beating up on each other also. In fact even the 4th place teams will be beating the other teams as the season goes on maybe too. I wouldn't think that any 2nd place team in the other 3 NFC divisions would have better than a 9-7 record.
10-6 as a 2nd place divisional team is a wild card lock. Look for the 2nd wildcard team to be 9-7 or 8-8 with tiebreaker implications. We need to beat Chicago to have the head to head over them in a tiebreaker if both of us come in 2nd place. GB could have been huge by the end of the year if a tiebreker is involved. Dallas and Zona could be big too if they get on a roll (if Zona gets on a roll they could be second in the West since the Rams are out, and if the Giants fall apart like theyve done the last weeks Dallas could take 2nd in the east) Of course, that's assuming we get that far, but it has possibilities. We need the beat Zona first, Dallas second...you get the picture.

The only divisional winner I can predict with cofidence is Philly. Lets hope they put a bunch of losses in the columns in the East.