Panthers say they’re peaking with only two games left

Panthers.com writer Max Henson says the Carolina Panthers are peaking. Unfortunately for them it comes with just two games left and no chance to reach .500 on the season.

Henson writes:

Beating the division champion Falcons before flying across the country to dominate the Chargers has inspired a ton of confidence in the Panthers locker room.

They are playing their best football of the year, and then some.

“I feel like we’re playing as well as we’ve played in about two years right now,” linebacker Thomas Davis said. “We are doing it as a team, doing it together.”

Third year defensive end Greg Hardy agreed with Davis’ valuation.

“Most definitely. This is the pinnacle of my career,” Hardy said. “It’s basically because everybody believes in it. We’ve always had talent, but it’s about the mentality and the atmosphere around here.”

That atmosphere has been noticeably different of late.

Offensively, the Panthers starting fast and stringing together lengthy touchdown drives consistently. The defense limited the Falcons to their second-lowest point total of the season before giving up just one touchdown against the Chargers.

All of that has added up to renewed confidence, and that’s been a key ingredient to the Panthers’ first back-to-back wins of the season.

“There’s a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” head coach Ron Rivera said. “Playing with confidence is big, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Said Davis: “It’s been going on around here for the last few weeks. Guys are really buying in to what’s going on. We are going out and making those (critical) plays, and once you start doing it, it becomes contagious.”

Sunday’s home finale against the Oakland Raiders presents Carolina with the opportunity to win three straight games for the first time since 2009, when the Panthers won their last three games of the season.

To read more, please click here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.