The Carolina Panthers opened the 2025 season with their fourth consecutive Week 1 loss. Not since Matt Rhule and Sam Darnold opened the 2021 season with three straight wins have the Panthers won a season opener. Coincidentally, that was also the last time the team had more than two consecutive wins. The Panthers have been bad and, despite late season hope and an offseason of promise dating back to Week 9 of 2024, last week’s game served nothing but disappointment.
We’ve talked a lot this week about
how maybe it wasn’t as bad as it looked. There are reasons for optimism, largely encompassed by the theory that if the team looked bad as a whole on one day then they could look good on a whole the next if everybody can clean up their individual mistakes. It’s a sound theory, but it also feels like a lot to ask for given the Panthers recent history.
Fans seem to think that it is, perhaps, too much to ask for.
A convincing win this week could see these numbers soar back up as high as the mid 60s, but the reality is that Panthers fans are a wary bunch right now. Years of failure has ingrained a “I’ll believe it when I see it” mentality. We thought we saw it last year and we started to believe. We didn’t see it Week 1 and so now we don’t. Even a one week rug pull like that—if we’re lucky enough to have it only be one week—won’t be completely overcome by one good week against the Cardinals.
Panthers fans were tied with fans of the Indianapolis Colts for the third highest confidence drop across the SB Nation network with a loss of 44% of fans. Only the Miami Dolphins (-45%), the Kansas City Chiefs (-47%), and the Tennessee Titans (-48%) had tougher weeks.
Dave Canales and Bryce Young are going to have to earn the trust of the Panthers faithful and re-earn their optimism. They’ll need to start this week, or else we’re going to be asking next week how many Panthers fans intend to even watch Week 3.
