Best Panther Season? No Question

(Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

The rest of the season floated by like a dream, only occasionally interrupted. Yeah, they lost to the Titans, but Jeff Fisher was a dick for starting that game off with an onsides kick. Yeah, they lost to the Texans for no real discernible reason, but they're the Panthers; they always lose to one high school calibre team a season. Sure, the loss against Vick stung (Falcons fans generally have extra chromosomes) and they got hosed by the refs against Dallas.

The season was perfect though. There was far more good than bad, incredibly entertaining games, fun, likeable players, and the opportunity for fans to seethe at the lack of big market media coverage.

The playoffs finally rolled around, and despite their home field advantage, the Panthers were expected to make it past Dallas. They had a defense full of studs, played in a harder conference, and had Bill Parcells as coach! They also had Quincy Carter at quarterback.

The Panthers steamrolled the Cowboys that night. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had never seen the crowd so excited. Panther fans rightly have the reputation of being a milk and cheese crowd, but hours of drinking and the excitement in the air had turned the bourgeois PSL owners into rabid animals.

The next week was even better. The Rams were still the Rams at that point, and the Panthers didn't have a chance of going into St. Louis and interrupting the Greatest Show on Turf. Many prognosticators had already penciled them in as Super Bowl champs. After a back and forth game which included John Kasay's game winning field at the end of regulation being negated due to a delay of game, Rams Kicker Jeff Wilkins lined up for a long try to win it.

I remember exactly where I was. I was sitting in my best friend's parents' den, surrounded by friends, on the floor in a fetal position, trying my best not to vomit. As soon as the kick went up, I realized something; it had traveled above the camera frame.

"It's too high!" I remember yelling immediately, though later reports indicate the sounds that actually came out more closely resembled animal grunts. The kick fell short, the Panthers took over possession, and on the very next play Jake Delhomme connected with Steve Smith on a play called X-Clown for the game winning touchdown and a possible NFC Championship Game in Carolina (which we didn't get because of the ludicrous, infamous 4th and 26 play in the Packers - Eagles game).

As soon as I saw Adam Archuletta lurch forward helplessly in an attempt to stop Smith, I knew he was gone. As fast as Steve I was out the door, running down the street, screaming at the top of my lungs. It wasn't the most mature moment of my life.

Following the drubbing of the Eagles in Philadelphia the following week, my friends and I stormed the Bastille, climbing all over the gigantic Panther statues that guard the entrances to what was then Ericsson Stadium. Thousands upon thousands of Panthers fans crowded into the small parking lot to await the arrival of the team. Everyone was a best friend that night, everyone you met deserved a hug. The team that had done nothing but embarrass since being beat down by Green Bay in the 1996 NFC Championship game had finally made us proud.

And then the Super Bowl happened and we're not going to talk about that.

I want to be very clear about the following point. Read this article by me to get a better idea of what the Panthers, especially in the beginning, meant to me.

If 2003 had never happened, it wouldn't have changed the way I feel about the team. If they'd followed up George Seifert with Steve Spurrier, and followed up that disaster with say Scott Linehan, until the Panthers were somehow even more of a mess than they'd been when John Fox took over, I'd still watch every game. I'd still wear my Panthers jerseys. I'd still have panic attacks whenever a game got close.

That season will always live in my mind because I finally understood what fandom could mean. No one appreciated what the Panthers did in 1996 because it came too fast. We were spoiled. We expected that, and when we didn't get it again, it ruined us for a while. 2003 changed all of that. It reminded us that every now and then, the team you cheer gets it right. Every now and then things fall into place perfectly.

Even if the Super Bowl didn't end the right way, they still got there. They still gave Charlotte the greatest sports season we've ever seen. They still put the rest of the teams history into perspective.

They still gave us a taste of how much better it could still be.

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