5 football-ish reasons the Panthers can beat the Saints on Sunday
This Sunday, the 8-3 Panthers travel to the Big Easy hoping to pick up a big, easy win over their 8-3 NFC South rivals in the New Orleans Saints. Here are five vaguely football-related reasons why that might be possible:
(1) A slight history edge
Historically, the Panthers and Saints match up pretty well. The two teams have played 45 games against each other, with Carolina taking 24 and New Orleans 21. The point spread is ridiculously close, with the Panthers scoring 976 points to New Orleans’ 973 over the last 22 years.
Even though Carolina and New Orleans have shared a division since the Panthers’ inaugural year, it took nearly a decade for both to be relevant at the same time. Yet somehow in those first 11 years (hooray selective endpoints), the Panthers beat out the Saints in overall wins (82 to 70) and playoff wins (six to one). Further, Carolina has won nearly every pivotal game between the two, particularly since Cam Newton arrived in Charlotte.
Which brings us to our next point:
(2) Carolina wins nearly every pivotal game over the Saints
Week 17, 2004: This was the exception. The 2004 season started out almost as bad as the 2003 season didn’t. After just one win through eight games and season-ending injuries to Steve Smith and just about every running back, the Panthers could have been forgiven for packing it in.
They did not. Finding a capable running back in Mike Goings, Jake Delhomme and company reeled off six wins in seven weeks, setting up a winner-take-all showdown with the Saints in Week 17. Sadly, though, John Kasay’s last-second 60-yard field goal attempt was blocked and the Panthers were kept out of the playoffs.
Week 16, 2013: Two weeks after getting blown out in the Superdome, the Panthers returned home for a shot at the NFC South and the first playoff berth in the Ron Rivera/Cam Newton era. It was a hotly-contested low-scoring affair that featured an acrobatic interception by Thomas Davis and this Cam Newton touchdown pass with 28 seconds left:
Week 14, 2014: Normally, a game between a 3-8-1 team and a 5-7 team wouldn’t be all that consequential. But everyone in the NFC South was down that year, as evinced by Carolina eventually winning it with a losing record (7-8-1).
But still, the New Orleans game proved to be the start of a four-game winning streak, and it was quite an emphatic start. The Panthers jumped out to a 24-3 lead at halftime before Jonathan Stewart broke free a minute into the second half for a 69-yard rushing touchdown to put the Saints away.
Week 13, 2015: The Saints were struggling at 4-7 but the Panthers were not. Undefeated and coming off a Thanksgiving Day rout of the Dallas Cowboys, Carolina was looking to roll to 12-0.
That didn’t quite happen. New Orleans jumped out to a 14-point lead off a textbook Drew Brees drive and a fumble return touchdown. The game swung wildly back and forth before Cam led another wonderful last-minute drive.
(3) Jake Delhomme
Cam Newton wasn’t the first franchise quarterback to grow up a fan of a division rival. Jake Delhomme was a Louisiana man through and through, growing up in Breaux Bridge before attending UL-Lafayette. When he finally broke into the NFL, it was for his hometown Saints, leading them to a 1999 win over the playoff-bound Dallas Cowboys.
It was that win that attracted the attention of John Fox before the 2003 season as the second-year head coach searched for someone to take the reins from an aging Rodney Peete.
(4) Relocation Karma
Between a veto that temporarily killed a stadium deal and the antics of then-owner George Shinn, there have been few relocation sagas more lengthy and dramatic than the one that saw the Hornets shipped to New Orleans back in 2002. To add insult to injury, the Hornets won the draft lottery in 2012 even though the previous year’s Bobcats had won just seven games, earning the right to draft the only surefire prospect that year in Anthony Davis.
But did you know New Orleans also nearly took our baseball team? Indeed back in 1993, Tom Benson, current owner of the New Orleans Saints, actually reached a deal to relocate the Charlotte Knights (then the Twins AA affiliate) to New Orleans. Thankfully, the Knights were saved on account of Major League Baseball stepping in to award minor league rights to the relocating Denver Zephyrs (who were soon to be replaced by the Rockies).
I understand New Orleans had their perfectly-named basketball team taken away, but stealing our basketball and baseball teams is not the solution.
(5) Ted Ginn and AJ Klein
In massive need of defensive help, the Saints took to the free agent market and acquired…the guy who wasn’t good enough to start for the Panthers.
Okay, I understand it’s not exactly fair to call AJ Klein “not good enough to start for the Panthers.” That’s true of every other middle linebacker in the National Football League. Also, with Kelvin Benjamin gone and Curtis Samuel hurt, I’m sure Cam would love to have his speed demon back.
In truth, it’s nice to see these guys succeed. It just kind of sucks that it has to be with the Saints.
Source: Stats compiled with the help of pro-football-reference.com
Photo: Butch Dill/AP
This story was originally published November 30, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "5 football-ish reasons the Panthers can beat the Saints on Sunday."