Panthers have never trailed in 2021. And Panthers Record when leading at Halftime

[KB_fan]

So far, Panthers are the only team to have never trailed this entire season....  I'm trying to figure out how to do a query in Pro Football Reference to discover the longest streak a team has gone without trailing. (And the longest prior streak by the Panthers too.)

Anyone here have experience in using PFRef Stathead and have ideas how to look that up? (Consecutive games in which a team never trailed).  My PFRef Query skills are VERY rusty since I've not used it much since early 2018, and they've changed the interface a little bit.

I've put out a request on Twitter to the RFRef folks... we'll see if they answer.

Stay tuned.....

 

But while I' was playing around in Stathead I went back to a conversation I was having with some folks on Twitter yesterday.  We were talking about the importance to this team of playing with a lead. Someone asked me what the Panthers record is when leading at halftime. 

[Back when I was last crunching Panthers stats with any kind of focus, I'd done some research and tables on that from 2015 - mid-2018.   In the 54 game stretch I reviewed (2015 - week 7 of 2018), Panthers led at halftime in 35 games, and won 31 of those. (89%).]

Tonight I was able to look up the answer for Panthers entire history:

Over Panthers history:

Lead at Halftime:  196 games.   W-L 148-48 (75.5%)    [The league average is 77.7%]

I then got curious about the different head coaches.  I haven't yet got full data for every season for every coach, but I did look at each coach's rookie season.

Capers 1995   Lead at Half  4 games.   Won 3.  75%

Seifert 1999    Lead at Half  8 games.    Won 7  87.5%

Fox  2002        Lead at Half  7 games.    Won 5  71.4%

Rivera 2011      Lead at Half 8 games      Won 4  50%

Rhule 2020     Lead at Half 6 games        Won 5  83.3%

 

So far with Rhule as a coach, we've won 8 of 9 games when we've been leading at halftime.  I love it!!

It was really interesting to see the difference in Rhule's fast start in this category compared to Rivera.  Rivera and the team dramatically improved over his tenure in terms of winning when they had the lead at the half, but he started really badly in this regard:

• 2011   4/8      50%
• 2012  5/8      62.5%
• 2013  10/13  76.9%
• 2014  5/6      83.3%
• 2015   12/12  100%
• 2016  6/10     60%
• 2017  10/10   100%
• 2018  6/8       75%

 

Anyway, this is too long.  But it made me appreciate that so far Rhule-coached Panthers teams seem to do well when leading at half.  Getting off to a fast start in games pays dividends and Rhule, Brady & Snow seem to know how to capitalize on that when they can do it.

Now that I've got a PFRef Stathead subscription I can play around with a lot of Panthers data again.  So feel free to shoot me questions you want me to look up.  Just a caution, I'm traveling tomorrow - Sunday so don't expect to be online here much at all until next week again... but I'll check in as I can and make a note of questions folks have.

Edited September 29, 2021 by KB_fan

[KB_fan]

I couldn't resist doing a bit more digging on this "never trailed" streak.

I pulled out my external hard drive that has all the old Panthers data Excel spreadsheets I created from 2014-2018, including the comprehensive gamebook data spreadsheets I maintained from 2015-2018 with detailed week by week data and did a little browsing through my old files.

In 2015, Panthers also had a 3 game "never trailed" streak.  It was weeks 10-12 of the season.  And week 12 happened to be the infamous Thanksgiving game at Dallas.  Panthers never trailed in that game. 

Can we beat Dallas again from wire to wire in 2021 to get to a 4 game "never trailed" streak this season?!?!?!  Wouldn't THAT be fun!?!!

• In 2015 Panthers had 8 regular season games in which they never trailed, plus the 2 playoff games. (Wks 1, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15) 
• In 2016 Panthers had 5 games they never trailed. (Wks 8, 9, 11, 14, 15)
• In 2017 Panthers had 5 games they never trailed. (Wks 1, 2, 8, 10, 14)
• In 2018 Panthers had 3 games they never trailed. (Wks 1, 9, 17)

I don't have comprehensive data for 2019 & 2020, but just quickly browsed through PFRef to look for streaks.

• In 2019 Panthers ALSO had a 3 game "never trailed" streak:  weeks 4, 5, 6.  They also never trailed in week 9.
• In 2020, Panthers never trailed in 3 games:  weeks 4, 11, 16.

So, we've had 3 game 'never trailed streaks" at least 2 other seasons in our history.  In 2015 it meant something, was part of a season of dominating the league.  In 2019, it proved to be fool's gold, that brief streak where Kyle Allen was winning and we were having fun before it all fell apart.

We'll know more by Sunday night what our 2021 3 game "never trailed" streak means and whether it will continue!

[ThPantherFan]

24 minutes ago, KB_fan said:

We'll know more by Sunday night what our 2021 3 game "never trailed" streak means and whether it will continue!

I found this very interesting.  Thanks for all the hard work.

[a_gumbel]

2015

 

 

For real tho thanks for the research, interesting and I don’t have the capacity to do it myself haha. 

Edited September 29, 2021 by a_gumbel

[Khyber53]

That was really interesting! May the streak continue!

[1of10Charnatives]

Fascinating! Thanks for the info and the work in putting it together. Great read!

[glenwo2]

Love the write-up.

But at the same time, it makes me nervous because it then makes it imperative that the Panthers score first 'cause otherwise, we're screwed.  

I don't want to think that.   I want to think that no matter who scores first, the Panthers find a way to win.

Edited September 29, 2021 by glenwo2

[Darknight]

That 2015 Thanksgiving game against Dallas...I loved every minute of it. Tony Romo was returning and as usual the Cowboys fans were thinking about playoffs....Luke and company during that game said "hold my beer". We dominated Dallas that night.