For 25 years, from Kerry to Cam, the ‘Atlanta Curse’ has haunted the Panthers
There are places all of us just don’t want to go.
For the Carolina Panthers, it’s Atlanta.
The Panthers make one 250-mile journey per year to the home of their nearest opponent, a team that has hosted Carolina 25 times and won 19 of those.
Carolina (2-2) goes there again Sunday, trying to win in a city it hasn’t won in since 2014 — but also playing an Atlanta team that is 0-4.
Will the Panthers win their third straight game of 2020 against this bad Atlanta team? Certainly they could. But Atlanta serves as the Panthers’ own personal underworld.
In 1998, a 51-23 shellacking by the Falcons in Atlanta was the last game quarterback Kerry Collins ever played for Carolina. Collins told coach Dom Capers after that game, according to Capers, that “his heart wasn’t totally into what he was doing.”
Soon, Capers waived Collins. A few months later, Capers himself got fired.
In 2015, the best Panthers team in history went to Atlanta with a 14-0 record — and exited 14-1.
In 2012, down 28-27 with no timeouts left, Matt Ryan threw a 59-yard pass from his own 1 at the Georgia Dome with 59 seconds to go. Falcons receiver Roddy White took the ball off the top of Panther safety Haruki Nakamura’s head, leading to a game-winning field goal.
And I’m not even getting into Julio Jones’ 300-yard game vs. Carolina in 2016; or Derrick Graham’s flinch on Carolina’s potential game-winning two-point play in the Panthers’ first game ever in 1995, when this “Atlanta Curse” began; or Cam Newton’s 2-6 record in Atlanta, the hometown where he wanted to win so badly; or the way a defensive end named Chuck Smith terrorized Panther quarterbacks for years in Atlanta.
The Panthers were so flummoxed by Smith’s pass rush that they figured “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” and signed him to a $21.5-million contract once he became a free agent in 2000. Smith quickly hurt his knee and played in just two career games for the Panthers before leaving the NFL for good.
Aborted takeoff in Atlanta
The Panthers’ trips to Georgia’s capital often end up something like the time I was in Atlanta myself in 2016, on Delta Flight 873, about to take off for Miami at 10:30 a.m.
We were nearing full speed on the runway. It was that moment where Jed Clampett of “The Beverly Hillbillies” once proclaimed of the pilot during his first plane ride: “By doggies, if he gets to goin’ much faster, this thing is gonna leave the ground!”
Right at the “gonna-leave-the-ground” moment, another plane crossed directly in front of us on the runway. The pilot hit the brakes at 140 mph, in what Delta would later term a “high-speed slowdown.” It jarred all of us passengers forward, and then back, although no one was seriously hurt.
Fortunately, that pilot — a guy named Captain Miller — was smart and capable. And he got us stopped before we hit that other plane, with the brakes screaming like the hounds of hell.
Then he drove us back to the gate, waited 90 minutes for the brakes to cool down and started over again, flying the very same plane to Miami with those of us who still wanted to go.
Why do I bring that up?
Because I still fly Delta sometimes, and I still fly through Atlanta almost every time I do. I’m like the Panthers in that way. If you travel by plane for work, there’s no real way to avoid Atlanta, even if you want to.
Ryan 10-2 vs. Panthers at home
Someone else who was on that plane and knows a lot about aviation told me the most accurate phrase for what happened that day was a “high-speed rejected takeoff.” That’s a useful phrase when you’re describing the Panthers’ performances in Atlanta.
Even the best Panther teams — the ones speeding down their own runways, ready to soar — often lose in Atlanta. That 2015 team had beaten the Falcons 38-0 just two weeks before, but it couldn’t win in Atlanta. The other Panthers’ Super Bowl team, the one from 2003, lost in Atlanta as well. It goes on and on.
You can blame some of this on Ryan.
The Falcons’ quarterback is 10-2 against Carolina in Atlanta, so he’s directed more than half of the Falcons’ 19 wins at home vs. the Panthers.
If Ryan could play the Panthers in Atlanta every week, his future ascendancy into the Pro Football Hall of Fame would be assured. In Charlotte, he’s mortal — a mere 6-6. In Atlanta, he’s Joe Montana.
What will Sunday bring? Another high-speed rejected takeoff for a Carolina team suddenly showing promise? Or will Matt Rhule and Teddy Bridgewater, who haven’t been a part of any of that history, usher in a new era for the Panthers in Atlanta?
I don’t know. But I can guarantee Panthers fans are going to get anxious on the journey. Atlanta just does that to you.
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
