Carolina Panthers receive early-morning wake-up call from pulled fire alarm

The Carolina Panthers were woken up mighty early on Sunday, thanks to a pulled fire alarm.

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UPDATE (10:09 a.m. ET)

Carolina has issued a statement about the pulled fire alarm. The team was staged in rooms on the first floor before players were cleared to return to their rooms sometime around 6 a.m. local time.

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If the Carolina Panthers look a little sluggish on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks, well, they have a couple of factors working against them.

Firstly, they flew across the country, and must play in the NFL’s loudest stadium. And then, yeah, somebody may-or-may-not have pulled the fire alarm at their Seattle Hotel.

"Who pulled the fire alarm…"

According to Ian Rapoport, the Panthers were stirred from their beds around 5:30 a.m. (local time) and were forced to hang outside of their hotel for a bit.

After a while the team was ushered to a staging area where they could congregate, though many of the players were less than happy.

The Panthers and Seahawks’ game will kickoff at 4:05 p.m. ET from CenturyLink Field. After starting slowly (see: 0-2), Seattle seemed to gain footing with the return of Kam Chancellor. However, after drawing even on the year, the Seahawks effectively crumbled in the fourth quarter last week against the Cincinnati Bengals. Seattle gave up 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, and would go on to lose in overtime, 27-24.

This week they’ll face yet another undefeated squad in the 4-0 Panthers. Despite losing star wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin before the year even started, and despite playing the majority of the year without all-everything linebacker Luke Kuechly, the Panthers found ways to grind out wins through the first four weeks of the year.

If there’s a high side to the early morning wake up, it’s that Carolina is coming off a bye. Hopefully for them, they were well-rested prior to Sunday.