Ron Rivera says Panthers control their own destiny, but that’s not exactly true

What does it mean to control your own destiny?

By its most rudimentary definition, it means your future is solely determined by your actions. In sports, it generally means a team will make the postseason if it wins the rest of its games, regardless of what anyone else does.

To control your own destiny is a liberating state of being, one where another team’s success (or lack thereof) won’t represent the difference between participating in the playoffs or watching them from the living room.

The Carolina Panthers do not control their own destiny. Not after their current three-game losing streak sent them from wild-card leader to wild-card hopeful in less than a month.

Head coach Ron Rivera says otherwise, although it seems like his definition falls in line with the fact that Carolina (6-5) can’t afford to lose any more games.

“The truth is, right now we still control your own destiny as far as if you go out and take it one game at a time, win one,” he said Monday. “We’ve got to win one, it’s three (losses) in a row right now. We’ve got to go out and win, that’s just the bottom line. The guys have got to believe they have a chance to play well and a chance to win.”

Winning out could prove challenging. Carolina has a more-difficult-by-the-week game in Cleveland (4-6-1) in two weeks, two games against the NFL-best New Orleans Saints (10-1) and one against an Atlanta Falcons (4-7) team it already lost to in Week 2. Excluding a beatdown at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Panthers could easily be 2-1 in their past three games.

Instead, they enter the final month of the regular season trailing Seattle (6-5), Washington (6-5) and Minnesota (6-4-1) in the NFC wild-card race. They can finish, at best, 11-5, which would give them double-digit wins in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history — and back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in franchise history.

But it won’t be easy for a team with three demoralizing losses in as many weeks.

“We’ve still got a shot, we just got to win one,” cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said. “Winning one can turn into two and things like that.

“It’s football. I’ve been part of a team that started 5-0 and didn’t make the playoffs. You’ve just got to keep grinding. You’ve got to win games in November and December. That’s the name of the game. If you get hot at the right time and win games in November and December, the sky’s the limit for that team.”

What needs to happen

Minnesota and Washington control the NFC’s two wild-card spots; Seattle and Carolina are the first two out. Having lost to Washington and the Seahawks, the Panthers likely need to finish with a better record than both to make the postseason. And both those teams have more favorable remaining schedules than Carolina.

Seattle plays Minnesota, Arizona (2-9) and Kansas City (9-2) at home and has a home-and-away with San Francisco (2-9). Washington plays away from FedEx Field three times, but doesn’t have a remaining opponent with a winning record, with two games against Philadelphia (5-6), and one each against Tennessee (5-6), Jacksonville (3-8) and the New York Giants (3-8) .

That said, Carolina should hope for Washington to win the NFC East, where it is tied with Dallas (6-5) atop the standings. Dallas owns the tiebreaker with Washington but plays New Orleans and Indianapolis (6-5) as well as Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and the New York Giants. If Washington can win the division outright, Carolina owns the tiebreaker with Dallas, having beaten the Cowboys in Week 1.

Minnesota may have the most difficult remaining schedule out of any of the teams in the hunt besides Carolina. The Vikings play Miami (4-7) and Detroit (4-7) but travel to New England (8-3) and Seattle, and close the season against Chicago (8-3).

It’s not exactly “controlling their own destiny” but on a scale of “Louisiana backroad” to “Beverly Hills driveway,” Carolina’s road to the postseason is somewhere around South Boulevard on a Wednesday evening — daunting, but better than it appears.

In Rivera’s words, the Panthers’ confidence took a hit over the past three weeks. They’ll look for a much-needed win Sunday against a Tampa Bay team it tagged for 35 first-half points in Week 9.

“Yeah, the confidence is (fragile) but the truth is, you’ve got to build them back up,” Rivera said. “The guys have just got to understand that they’re capable and you’ve got to make sure that they learn from what happened. That’s what we’ll try to do.

“We’ll continue to coach them up, we’ll try to put them in the best positions and give them that chance to go out and play.”

Munnerlyn said the team treated last week’s game against Seattle like a playoff game and “fell short.” He said the loss hurt but wasn’t as demoralizing as fans and media made it out to be.

“We’ve still got hope,” he said. “We’ve just got to go out there and start winning games.”

Hope.

It isn’t full control of their future, but for the Panthers, it’ll have to do.