Carolina Panthers Save Dismal Season with Emphatic Win over Cardinals

The 2016 season hasn't gone according to plan for the Carolina Panthers. After winning 15 games and representing the NFC in Super Bowl 50 a year ago, the Panthers lurched their way to five losses in six games.

There wasn't a team in the NFL more desperately in need of a win in Week 8. If the Panthers had any hopes of making the postseason, they had to get a win against the visiting Arizona Cardinals coming out of their bye week.

Carolina accomplished that goal in a 30-20 victory, and while there's still a ton of ground to be made up before the Panthers can say the word playoffs with a straight face, this game might just have saved their season.

The home team started the afternoon in impressive fashion. On the first drive of the game, defensive tackle Star Lotulelei stripped the ball from Arizona quarterback Carson Palmer. Linebacker Thomas Davis scooped it up and raced 46 yards down the sideline, and just like that, it was 7-0.

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Play of the game!!!

TD for TD!!! https://t.co/zGSIyRE9nv

— CAR Panthers News (@CarPanthersNews) October 30, 2016"

The Panthers were only getting started.

On their second offensive series of the game, Carolina drove 75 yards in nine plays, with tailback Jonathan Stewart punching it in from two yards out. Stewart capped off a 65-yard march with a one-yard plunge on the Panthers' next drive.

They completely smothered the Arizona offense in the first half, and by intermission, it was 24-7 and the game was effectively over.

Yes, the Cardinals made things a bit more interesting in the second half with the Panthers' playing prevent, but this contest wasn't as close as the score indicated. It was easily the team's best performance of 2016.

And it isn't hard to figure out why the result Sunday was so different than what we've seen from Carolina so far in 2016.

For one day at least, the Panthers fixed most of the issues that have dogged them this year.

Stewart had his best game of the season, gaining 95 yards on 25 carries. The Panthers rushed for 141 yards as a team, well above their season average.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

It was the defense, however, that truly shined. In addition to the Palmer fumble, the Panthers logged another takeaway late when defensive end Kony Ealy sealed the deal with an interception. The pass rush was in Palmer's face from the get-go, notching a season-high eight sacks.

That number comprises 40 percent of Carolina's total for the season in that category. Lotulelei got to Palmer three times in arguably the best game of his career. The Panthers got two sacks from defensive backs on blitzes.

In short, the big plays that were such a staple of the Panthers defense during their Super Bowl run—big plays that had been sorely lacking in 2016—reappeared.

Head coach Ron Rivera lauded his team's effort on both sides of the ball after the game while speaking with Michael Persinger of the Charlotte Observer.

“It’s huge because it’s one of those things you can build off of,” Rivera said. “Today we played to our abilities. We’ve done some good things, but you are what your record says. We’ve got to keep rolling.”

Rivera has reason to be excited. Sunday's win did quite a bit for the Panthers' slim hopes of a fourth straight playoff appearance.

Team	W-L-T	Home	Away	GB
Atlanta Falcons	5-3-0	2-2-0	3-1-0	-
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	3-4-0	0-3-0	3-1-0	1.5
New Orleans Saints	3-4-0	2-2-0	1-2-0	1.5
Carolina Panthers	2-5-0	2-2-0	0-3-0	2.5

Now, before anyone gets snarky about the idea of a 2-5 Panthers team being a playoff contender, consider this: We've seen this movie before.

Two years ago, the Panthers started the season 3-8-1. The postmortem on their season had been done. Next of kin notified. Last rites administered.

Then they reeled off four wins in a row, and the next thing anyone knew, they were the 7-8-1 champions of a bad NFC South. They even won a playoff game over the Cardinals before falling in the Divisional Round to the Seattle Seahawks.

Well, I have news for you—the South ain't exactly rising again in 2016.

Even after the Atlanta Falcons beat the Green Bay Packers Sunday, there is only one team above .500 in the division, and that team (Atlanta) started last year 6-1 before fading badly over the second half of the season. The win was Atlanta's first since Oct. 9 after starting the season 4-1. 

The Panthers are in last place, but they're also only 2.5 games out of first with one game remaining against each team ahead of them.

Is it likely that the Panthers will be able to once again accomplish an improbable surge from the NFC South outhouse to the penthouse? No. Cam Newton isn't playing at the MVP level of a year ago, and a Josh Norman-less Carolina secondary again allowed an opposing quarterback to throw for over 300 yards in Week 8.

But Newton is still the reigning NFL MVP, and we can't assume he won't find that form again. Except for Norman, this is essentially the same group of players who came one game from a perfect regular season in 2015.

And every other team in the NFC South has problems of its own—no one in the division appears all that interested in playing defense, like, ever.

In the lead-up to Sunday's game, Newton told Mark Inabinett of AL.com that the Panthers just needed one strong performance to get their swagger back, one good game to get things back on the right track:

"

We've just got to get that feeling back. I appreciate all the well-wishes and all the still-constant support from our fans. Expecting that Sunday is going to be a big game for us for obvious reasons. We just need to get that feeling back in Charlotte that people fear. And if we do that, everything else will start coming around and making sense for us.

"

The Panthers got that big performance against the Cardinals. The question now becomes whether they can build on it starting next week in Los Angeles.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.