As quarterback Cam Newton and the rest of the Carolina Panthers trotted off the field following their 24-10 Super Bowl loss to the Denver Broncos, they were prone to feel overcome with emotion after defeat on par with their on-the-field performance. To come so close to achieving greatness but leave with nothing would depress all but the most resilient souls.
However, these Panthers achieved more in one season than just about any team in the history of the NFL, and for this they will be remembered and their season romanticized. Hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is inarguably the crowning achievement of skill, unity and dedication for a franchise. But only one out of 32 teams can win it in a given year and it’s ultimately decided by a mere 60 minutes of play where countless micro-decisions by players, coaches and referees alike can completely alter the outcome.
What the Panthers did accomplish this season truly transcends the significance that any trophy, award or historical benchmark can assign, but that’s not to say the team, and its players didn’t come away with all of these things.
For the past two seasons, Carolina was a popular pick to drop out of the playoffs and be surpassed by other rising teams within its own division. After all, coming into 2014, no NFC South team had ever repeated as the division champion. Jump ahead two years and the Panthers have now won three division titles in a row while posting a historical winning streak over that same span.
Beyond having 10 players selected to the Pro Bowl — six on offense, four on defense — individual members of the organization were recognized with some fairly prestigious awards. To no one’s surprise, Newton was named league MVP and Offensive Player of the Year as he ascended to superstardom while head coach Ron Rivera was named Coach of the Year, having turned a 7-8-1 team littered with castoffs from other teams into the most dominant in the league, winning 14 games to start the season before suffering its first loss then running through its first two playoff opponents in equally shocking fashion.
What separates the 2015 Panthers from other teams who reached the Super Bowl and lost or attained similar individual accolades is the manner in which they overcame adversity and doubt, playing with an infectious, almost childlike love for the game and team-first mentality that grew increasingly apparent as the season wore on.
As soon as the media began to criticize Newton’s “dabbing,” his teammates were quick to his aid, mimicking their leader’s celebration of choice. In fact, the whole team, including the coaches, gathered for a picture before the Super Bowl in which all but two players dabbed in unison.
Before long, the emotional sensitivity of the final loss will fade for fans, and fond memories of the season’s many magical moments will resurface. Many will recall a team playing without its defensive leader, linebacker Luke Kuechly, for three weeks near the start of the season, forcing the ascension of players like cornerback Josh Norman, who had a game-saving interception in Week 4 against the New Orleans Saints.
Fans will likewise remember the team fighting off ferocious comebacks from the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers and New York Giants where Newton and the rest of the offense seemed to ignore the force of momentum and calmly drive down the field, coming up with just enough points to claim victory.
A team that most slated as run-of-the-mill — ranked 16th to start the season by ESPN’s power rankings — managed to put on a show that had viewers across the nation enthralled all season long.
The Panthers come away with just a faint idea of what Super Bowl victory feels like, but if you’ve learned anything about these players and coaches, you’d know it’s the taste of defeat that will motivate them to push relentlessly to get back to this stage next year and claim what they feel is rightfully theirs.
