The 10 unforgettable days that defined the 2010s for the Carolina Panthers
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The 2010s contained 3,652 days.
Of those, here are a few of the most significant in Carolina Panthers history — the 10 days that defined this decade for a fascinating, up-and-down team.
This column is the second of my two-part series — the first part ranked the significance of 10 important player transactions during the decade. I self-imposed a “no duplication” rule in these stories. When you don’t see the Panthers releasing Steve Smith or drafting Cam Newton on the list below, that’s why. Those moves, and eight more, were on the previous list.
With that in mind, in chronological order, here are my picks for the 10 most significant days of the past decade for the Panthers.
The Sunday giveaway (Oct. 23, 2011)
One of the most beloved Panthers traditions began in Newton’s rookie year. Then-quarterbacks coach Mike Shula gently nudged Newton to amend his “Superman” celebration to make it more about the fans and less about just him.
As Newton would recount following this game against Washington, in which he gave a ball to a fan after a touchdown for the first time following a reminder from Shula over the helmet headset: “He [Shula] says when you celebrate, it’s not a celebration unless you give back. He says, ‘You do all that riff-raff, whatever you do, but at the end you give that football to a little kid. You find a little kid.’ So after I did whatever I did, I heard [Shula] in my headset saying, ‘Give it to a little kid! Give it to a little kid!’ I looked and there was this kid just gleaming from ear to ear, so I gave it to him.”
Birth of Riverboat Ron (Oct. 13, 2013)
In 2013, Ron Rivera was in trouble, and so were the Panthers. They began the season 1-3. Rivera had narrowly escaped being fired after the 2012 season, and he knew that the team had to improve or his career wouldn’t survive a third straight losing year.
It was then that Rivera decided he simply had to coach more aggressively. In a road game at Minnesota, well before probability analytics started many NFL coaches down this path, Rivera went for it on fourth-and-1 twice on a first-quarter drive.
The Panthers scored on the second fourth down, a pass from Newton to Smith. Carolina finished 12-4 that season, and Rivera coached the team for another six-plus years.
Thomas Davis, Man of the Year (Jan. 31, 2015)
One of the most popular players in Panthers history, linebacker Thomas Davis also has long been known as one of their most charitable. Davis won the 2014 Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award on this date, recognizing his off-the-field community service as well as his playing excellence. Davis’s work concentrates on programming for underprivileged children.
The Panthers won a bushel of awards during the decade — Rivera was coach of the year (twice!); Newton was the NFL’s MVP; Luke Kuechly was the NFL’s Defensive MVP. You could argue that Davis’s win as “Man of the Year” trumps all of those.
The big fight (Aug. 10, 2015)
There have been several fights between Carolina teammates over the years, but none was as weird nor as highly publicized as the day in training camp when Josh Norman intercepted Newton in a drill in Spartanburg. An angry Newton tried to tackle him, prompting Norman to throw the ball into Newton’s face to spark a brief but intense melee.
The two weren’t really friends beforehand. “Cam’s a good guy, but we didn’t really talk,” Norman told me later, referring to the duo’s relationship before their fight. “We had an admiring respect. A respect, like, a sniffing kind of respect. You know when two dogs sniff and they know what’s good and then they go their different ways? And don’t really play with each other? Like that. I just wanted to one-up him, and he just wanted to one-up me.”
After Norman pulled Newton’s helmet off and Newton threw Norman to the ground, teammates separated them. They made up quickly, and both ended up having career years.
Thanksgiving cornucopia (Nov. 26, 2015)
The Panthers were so far down the NFL’s totem pole for so many years that, until 2015, they were never invited to play in one of the NFL’s Thanksgiving showcase games. They finally were chosen in 2015, facing Dallas at AT&T Stadium. The Cowboys were 3-7. The Panthers were 10-0. And yet the Cowboys — with quarterback Tony Romo coming back from an injury — were briefly favored in Las Vegas.
That game was a holiday celebration for the Panthers, though, as Kuechly intercepted Romo on back-to-back plays, returning one for a touchdown. Safety Kurt Coleman also had a pick-six, and the Panthers won in a rout.
Razing Arizona (Jan. 24, 2016)
If you were in Bank of America Stadium on this day, you felt like you were closer to Asheville than Charlotte. It was a mountaintop experience — the first time the Panthers had ever hosted the NFC Championship game. It was also a three-hour party that resulted in a 49-15 Carolina win.
Arizona was forced into seven turnovers. Newton accounted for four TDs. Ted Ginn Jr. had a huge game. Absolutely everything worked.
Super Bowl letdown (Feb. 7, 2016)
Panthers fans have rarely felt worse than they did during this 24-10 loss, in which a favored Carolina team absolutely couldn’t handle Von Miller and Denver’s defense.
The Panthers entered the game with a 17-1 record and riding high. They exited in shambles. Newton, the NFL’s Most Valuable Player that season, didn’t try to jump on a fourth-quarter fumble that resulted in Denver’s clinching TD and then gave a petulant press conference. The Panthers lost that opportunity for a championship and have never come close to one since, going 29-34 overall and missing the playoffs in three of the four years since this turning point.
Richardson bows out (Dec. 17, 2017)
On one of the most bizarre days in Panthers history, a bombshell report from Sports Illustrated detailed multiple instances of workplace misconduct from Panthers owner and founder Jerry Richardson. At the exact same time the report dropped, the Panthers were beginning to play an exciting home game against the Green Bay Packers, which they won 31-24.
But all that news was then trumped by Richardson’s announcement via a press release, only about seven hours after the Sports Illustrated report was published, that he would put the Panthers up for sale. The NFL still investigated Richardson despite his intention to sell. The league fined Richardson a record $2.75 million after it substantiated many of the claims against the former owner (now 83 years old), who was accused of both sexual and racial misconduct in the SI report.
David Tepper buys the Panthers (May 22, 2018)
Following Richardson’s announcement that he would sell the team, it took only five months for billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper to be approved as its new owner. Tepper paid $2.275 billion for the Panthers and quickly said in his first news conference following approval by the other NFL owners that the team would stay in Charlotte. It was barely 18 months after that when another league welcomed Tepper — Major League Soccer announced Charlotte as its 30th franchise earlier in December.
Tepper fires Rivera (Dec. 3, 2019)
Tepper pronounced his primary goal to be “winning” when he bought the Panthers, but the team didn’t do a whole lot of that for their new owner. The Panthers were 7-9 during Tepper’s first season as owner and then 5-7 when he unceremoniously fired Rivera with four games remaining in the 2019 season.
Greg Olsen responds to Rivera’s firing
Tepper said he fired Rivera before the season ended because he knew he wanted to hire a new coach and to begin his search, and that he didn’t want to start the interview process behind Rivera’s back. Rivera then gave a gracious news conference the next day, holding up a T-shirt at the end that read: “Thank you.”
Tepper and the Panthers will start the 2020s with a new coach, trying to make a new list of memories that, finally, includes a Super Bowl victory.
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
