The Carolina Panthers don’t deserve a playoff spot
By Bryce Olin
The Carolina Panthers finished the season with a losing record and don’t deserve a spot in the NFL playoffs
The sub-.500 Carolina Panthers (7-8-1) host the Arizona Cardinals (11-5) in the wild-card playoff opener on Saturday, and surprisingly, no one really seems to care.
In the NFL, as you probably know, the four division-winners host at least one playoff game, even if a wild-card team has a better record than any of the four division winners. That’s just how it works.
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The Panthers won the NFC East with a 7-8-1 record and now have home field advantage in the wild-card round of the NFL. Does that seem fair to anyone?
It’s not the first time a team with a sub-.500 record has made the playoffs. It happened very recently, in fact. In 2010, the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC West with a 7-9 record.
In that season, Seattle hosted the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, who had an 11-5 record, and then beat them, eliminating the Saints from the playoffs.
Although the game featured my favorite rushing touchdown of all-time, Marshawn Lynch’s famous “Beast Mode” run, and reignited football in Seattle, the Seahawks didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs that season, just like the Carolina Panthers don’t deserve to be in the playoffs this season.
When the Saints lost in Seattle, I remember a significant amount of outrage that an 11-5 team and the defending Super Bowl champion had to travel across the country into the Pacific Northwest (#WeTheCold) to play a team that was more-or-less terrible.
Because of that, I’m having a hard time understanding why no one is outraged the Cardinals have to make the cross-country, East Coast road trip to play the god-awful Panthers?
Maybe, it’s because it’s the Arizona Cardinals, losers of four of their last six games, aren’t the national power that New Orleans was at the time they had to go to Seattle. Remember, the Saints were America’s team after the Super Bowl victory and it was pre-Bountygate.
Maybe, it’s because the Cardinals have been left for dead after losing both their top two quarterbacks and running back.
Those both might be true, but I still think it’s stupid the Cardinals, a team with a better record and a better team overall, has to travel to a team that didn’t even win eight games this season.
In a time when we’re obsessed with “getting it right” with twenty extra minutes of instant replay every game, why can’t we figure out a playoff system that rewards the good teams for being good?
There’s no way a team that did not win a game between Week 6 and Week 13 deserves to host a playoff game, regardless of how they do the rest of the season.
When I started thinking about this issue, I thought Carolina deserved to be in the playoffs, but as I took a closer look, I honestly don’t think the Panthers deserve to be in the playoffs. I’d much rather have the Philadelphia Eagles (10-6), San Francisco 49ers (8-8), or even the Minnesota Vikings (7-9), who smashed the Panthers 31-13 in Week 13, representing the NFC in the playoffs than the Carolina Panthers.
To their credit, the Panthers did win their last four games of the season, and now are one of the hottest teams in the league. They survived the worst division, and took their chance win they had it, destroying the Atlanta Falcons 34-3 in the division-deciding Week 17 game.
I don’t know why I have a problem with this happening in the NFL. In all other major US sports, there’s some sort of inequity when it comes to seeding for the playoff.
In the NBA, if a team wins one of the three divisions in the conference, they’re guaranteed a top-four seed in the playoffs, regardless of how their record stacks up to the rest of the conference.
In the MLB, the division-winner is guaranteed a spot in the division round of the playoffs and hosts the wild-card winner, even if the wild-card winner has a better record.
It makes sense that, in the NFL, the division winner gets to host a playoff game. That’s how it works in other sports, too. But, it doesn’t really make that much sense when a division winner has a losing record.
Over the course of the season, the Panthers only beat one playoff team, the Detroit Lions in Week 2. They also tied the Cincinnati Bengals, so against playoff teams, the Panthers had a 1-4-1 record this season. That’s terrible! They don’t deserve a spot in the playoffs for playing that poorly.
Plus, Carolina’s big wins during the last four weeks of the season were against teams with a combined 22-42 record this season, a full 20 games under .500. Dear god.
I don’t want this to come off as an anti-Panthers column, especially on the day of their big playoff game, but quote Gob Bluth and all the Bluths from Arrested Development, COME ON!
The Panthers shouldn’t be in the playoffs. The Philadelphia Eagles, a team that beat Carolina 45-21, should be in the playoff instead, and that’s what I’m proposing to you today.
Let’s start a campaign to change the NFL for the better. I’m tired of bad teams making the playoff over good, deserving teams.
Here’s the new rule I’d like to propose:
If a division winner has a losing record AND there’s a team in the conference with a better, winning record, then the division winner will be replaced in the playoffs with that team.
In this case, the Arizona Cardinals would be hosting the Philadelphia Eagles, a rematch of one of the best games of the year, in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
That’s the only fair solution to this problem, and yes, it is a problem.
I understand the arguments of tradition and other teams not deserving it, like the Eagles, who had every opportunity to lock up a playoff berth but squandered their opportunities down the stretch. I can see those things, too.
But, I also see the big picture of a team with a losing record with a home game against a Ryan Lindley-quarterbacked team and a decent shot to advance to the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.
Is that what we want, NFL fans? Do we want to watch terrible teams in the playoffs, or do we want the best possible product on the field at all times?
I think the answer is simple; Carolina doesn’t deserve to be in the playoffs.
Sorry, Panthers fans, but you know it’s true.