It’s early, but Panthers game vs. Bears could have NFL playoff implications
This is a sentence I never thought I’d be writing in mid-October, but the Panthers-Bears game Sunday actually has playoff implications.
Not a lot of them, mind you. The 2020 NFL regular season still has 11 games to go, if COVID-19 doesn’t shut things down, and so this is no more than early skirmishing.
Still, Carolina (3-2) and Chicago (4-1) could well be two of the teams in the NFC playoff hunt in late December. And if it came down to them each, say, going 9-7 and competing for the final wild-card playoff spot, the result of Sunday’s game would be the tiebreaker.
We’ve got a long way to go between here and there. Carolina’s three-game winning surge could always turn out to be a false sugar high, like 2019’s four-game winning streak was.
But that’s not much fun to think about, is it?
So enjoy the ride while it lasts. As they used to say at the old White Lightnin’ ride at Carowinds in the 1980s, just before it took off: “Lightning Strikes … Now!”
Lightning is striking repeatedly for the Panthers at the moment, after they went 315 days between wins. So tell yourself this game has playoff implications and feel good about it. Because at the moment, it does.
▪ As the season hurtles along, pause a moment to think a kind thought about defensive tackle Kawann Short.
Short is one of the last holdovers on the Panthers between the Super Bowl team of 2015 and this one, but I believe he has played his last game for the Panthers.
Short was put on injured reserve with a shoulder injury for the second year in a row this week — different year and different shoulder, but the same sad result. That means in 2019 and 2020, Short will end up playing in only five of a possible 32 games.
In 2021, Short will be 32 years old with a staggering salary-cap hit of nearly $21 million, as the final bill comes due on the old five-year, $80-million contract Short signed with former general manager Dave Gettleman.
Good for Short for getting paid, back then at the height of his career, when he was one of the NFL’s best defensive tackles. But injuries have ensured the Panthers didn’t get great value for that Gettleman contract. Even though he’s a fine man and still a very good player when healthy, it will financially be almost impossible for Carolina to keep Short next season.
▪ Before I get to the prediction, does anyone else remember the “White Lightnin’” ride referenced above? At Carowinds, it was close to “Thunder Road,” which stuck around a lot longer.
And did you know that “White Lightnin’” wasn’t demolished in 1988, when it left Carowinds for good, but was actually reassembled at an amusement park in South Africa? It’s now called the Golden Loop and is still operating in a park called “Gold Reef City” in Johannesburg, at least if you believe several roller-coaster websites I consulted.
▪ OK, enough Carowinds history. I am delaying my prediction to see if you might forget that I missed the Panthers’ outcome the past two weeks, dropping to 3-2 on the year by incorrectly picking Carolina to lose against Arizona and Atlanta.
This time I think Carolina will do just enough against Chicago’s stingy defense to win a relatively low-scoring game. My prediction: Carolina 20, Chicago 17.
This story was originally published October 18, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
