The Panthers are looking like a Super Bowl team

After a big win against the Bucs, the 6-2 Carolina Panthers are looking like a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

This is the Carolina Panthers team we’ve been waiting to see since they made their run to the Super Bowl back in 2015.

Ever since that season, in which they lost in Super Bowl 50 to Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, the Panthers have essentially stumbled and bumbled along these last few years. Last year, they went 11-5 and lost in the Wild Card round. The year before that, trying to rebound from that tough Super Bowl defeat, Carolina went just 6-10 and missed the playoffs entirely as questions started to circulate around quarterback Cam Newton.

In 2018, however, the Panthers are back, and they look like a team that belongs in the Super Bowl.

They are 6-2, having won five of their last six games, and they just highlighted Week 9 with a dominant 42-28 victory over their NFC South rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 29-year-old Newton, playing in his eighth NFL season, was sensational once again, completing 19 of 25 passes with two touchdowns and throwing for 247 yards.

Star running back Christian McCaffrey added a pair of touchdowns himself as the Panthers continued to climb the NFC South ladder. But even though they are playing excellent football right now, and even though they look like a Super Bowl team once again, it will be much easier said than done to actually make it to the Super Bowl.

Heck, Carolina might not even win the division, although the New Orleans Saints are just as hot right now, if not hotter, than the Panthers are.

So the Panthers still have their work cut out for them. To get to the Super Bowl, they will most likely have to go through both the Saints and the Rams, two things hardly anyone has been able to do this season.

Buckle up, Carolina fans. Your team is in a great spot right now, and they have a chance to go back to the Super Bowl. But the most difficult part of the season is still yet to come.