State of the Panthers: Pre-training camp roster outlook in 2021
By Noah Bryce
What is a realistic timetable for the Carolina Panthers to make another run for the biggest game in all of football?
Football, as with all sports, is ever forward-looking. It very much has a “What have you done for me lately?” mentality and nothing is ever good enough for front offices, players, or especially the fans.
The Carolina Panthers are no exception.
Even the great Buffalo Bills teams of the 1990s have the running joke attached to their success of losing four straight Super Bowls to the NFC East.
With the 2021 season fast approaching, all eyes are on last year’s contenders of that big game. The aging wonder that is Tom Brady looking for one more run vs. the young gun Patrick Mahomes looking to cement his legacy, and those names cast a long shadow that can make us forget the potential of some other teams.
But with all that pressure and the harsh reality of the Super Bowl hangover, there might just be enough wiggle room for a surprise team to sneak in and take their place.
Whether that be a team on the rise in the Bills or a team wanting desperately to change their perception in the Cleveland Browns, we won’t know until the confetti drops on another season. But with such clear groupings of teams in the NFL, from the surefire contenders all the way down to the never gonna happen, where do the Panthers fit this year and beyond?
To answer that question we need to look at the current roster and how it stacks up against recent champions’ proven records and methods of building the best team in the sport.