And by “special”, I do mean “short bus” special.

Let’s get this straight right now, I am not a Panthers’ fan.  So I really don’t have a horse in this race.  If they never win another game, my only reason to care is that I’ll have to hear about it from all these “friends” surrounding me who ARE Panthers’ fans.  And they are interminable with their self-loathing.  So, indirectly at least, I really would like to see the Panthers pull out of this tail spin.  Because I’m tired of listening to the “after last year we deserve better than this” line of crap.

DESERVE’S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

And it ain’t gonna happen.  At least not this year.

Not too long ago, I told you the Panthers needed to have a lot of questionmarks fall their way to repeat their NFC Champs achievements of last season, and that it was unlikely to happen.  Little did I know just how right I was.

I thought 11-5 was a reasonable prediction, because I thought they’d fall off considerably.  Little did I know.

Currently, they sit at a whopping 1-5.  If they run off a 10 game win streak exiting the bye week, then my prediction is golden.  They won’t.

Let’s review….

An opening week road loss to the defending Superb Owl Champs by a single point.  OK, fair enough.

This was followed up by a bounce back home victory over the Niners.  Nice…but it’s the Niners.

Then a four game losing streak to:

• Home vs Minny (not nearly as bad as it sounded at the time, but still…gotta defend home turf)
• Road at ATL (not nearly as bad as it sounded at the time…excusable)
• Home vs TB (every bit as bad as it sounded at the time…Home turf, dammit)
• Road at NO (every bit as bad as it sounded at the time…even on the road, it’s the freaking Aints for god’s sake)

So, the Panthers’ wins have come against teams with a combined record of 1-6.  That’s a joke, btw.  They have only one win.  The team they managed to beat is 1-6.  Impressive, huh?  Sadly, neither the Bears nor the Factory are on the upcoming schedule.

Injuries have been part of the story, yes.  But so has sloppy play on the field.  And youth in the D backfield.  And regardless of the excuses….errrr reasons, they’re sitting at 1-5 at the bye week.  No matter the reasons or the competition level(s)….That’s not so good.

Since the NFL went to a 12-team postseason format in 1990, only one of 92 teams that started 1-5 made the playoffs.

It just so happens that one team was the Kansas City Chiefs last season, pulling it off by winning their final 10 regular-season games. The Chiefs then beat Houston, which overcame a 1-4 start to make the playoffs, in a wildcard game before falling to New England in the divisional round.

As the Carolina Panthers try to climb out of a 1-5 hole and beat the odds, head coach Ron Rivera is looking to the Chiefs as inspiration.

“We’ve got an opportunity to do something that was done last year. A team started 1-5 and came back and put themselves in position,” Rivera said Tuesday. “That’s what we’re working toward is to put ourselves in position and we’ll see what happens.”

Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera cut out of the Carrie Underwood concert early Sunday night so he could catch the end of the second half of the Seahawks-Cardinals.

“It was good,” Rivera said of the concert. “It was loud, though. I’m a little bit of a fuddy duddy.”

While Rivera opted for a staycation during the bye week, many of his players traveled to their former schools and more exotic locales to get away from the stench of a 1-5 start.

If the idea was to take five days away from football and come back feeling refreshed and energized, Rivera was Exhibit A.

Sheeesh, Ron.  If you’re actually going to go to a Carrie Underwood concert (strike one), and then publicly admit to it (strike two), at least stay for the whole thing and look at those legs for as long as possible (strike three).  Hell man, you’re Riverboat Ron…or at least you were.  You probably could have gotten back stage n junk.  Instead you wanted to watch the end of that AZ/SEA abortion.  I too watched that godforsaken game.  And if you think for one second I wouldn’t rather have chosen to sip margaritas with Carrie Underwood’s legs, you ARE freaking delusional.  smgdh.

 The Panthers’ D-line will get a boost at least, as Vernon Butler returns after missing the past three weeks.  Will it matter?  Meh.  Dude’s a rookie who wasn’t yet very good before he went out with an ankle injury 3 weeks ago.  Now he’s further behind.

Looking at the Panthers’ schedule upcoming, and given match ups and how they’ve played thus far, I see only a handful of realistic wins still on the schedule.  I’m not even going to state which ones they are because this team is such a train wreck that I’m not willing to go out on a limb for them even for those.  Here’s the schedule, you can figure it out probably….

Could they turn it around?  Yes.  Will they?  Highly unlikely.  For whatever reason, this team now has the stench of a loser.  That’s a difficult stench to shake off in mid-season when so much has gone south already.

Plus ca change, Plus c’est la meme chose.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

(apologies to my friends in France…I can’t even be bothered to put the accent cedille in there on “ca”)

((apologies to Rush for me ripping them off))

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Here, have some sexy cheerleader types to distract from the product on the field….

And with that, I end any further thought wasted on this alleged professional footballing crew.

Unless one of these young lovelies shows up to recruit me for the cause.  Then we’ll talk.  At least.

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