Jump to content
  • Welcome!

    Register and log in easily with Twitter or Google accounts!

    Or simply create a new Huddle account. 

    Members receive fewer ads , access our dark theme, and the ability to join the discussion!

     

What do the Panthers mean for you?


exactlyzack
 Share

Recommended Posts

Long story short…was supposed to move to Charlotte at same time Panthers were named newest NFL team. Never did move but I still fell for the team hook, line and (mostly) sinker. Live in Richmond, but my heart is in BOA Stadium on Sundays. And occasionally my ass is too when I can get down there. 

  • Pie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Panthers got me interested in the NFL. I moved to Winston-Salem from New York when I was 6 years old, and neither of my parents were football fans, really.  I was a big Wake Forest basketball fan since my dad played there back in the 70’s, but football?  Not so much.

I was 11 when the Panthers were formed, and I watched a few games the first year.  Then, from ‘96 until now, I’ve watched most every game.  When I lived in Charlotte from ‘08-‘10, I went to every home game.

Apathy is a hell of a thing.  The past several years have been hard to watch, and now with 2 kids, I find even less of a reason to tune in every week to watch us lose.  My kids, despite the sucking, are Panthers fans - so there’s that.  I really hope we can turn it around, because I really miss being super passionate about the Panthers.  It just seems like Tepper doesn’t care.. and if he of all people doesn’t care, why should I?

 

 

  • Pie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Panthers are the longest relationship I have ever been in (27 years). I have made folllowing them a hobby and is part of my everyday life. Whether we suck or we are great, I have never changed routine. It's most likely never going to change, and will be passed down to my children, as long as they are interested. 

Edited by TheCasillas
  • Pie 1
  • Beer 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's a part of my home. I had lived all of my life in the Carolinas, with the exception of middle + high school when we moved to NJ + MD, but as soon as I graduated I came right back down. I remember hating the Falcons, and that was the team most of the folks in the upstate at the time followed. I followed the 49ers until Montana was traded to Kansas City, but the Panthers had been announced then as well so I only had 2 seasons of watching the Chiefs + 49ers until the inaugural 1995 season.

During a really tough point in my life when I didn't have access to much, the team went to their first Super Bowl and my family sans me went. It stings to this day, but in 2015 I had the best year of my life. Got married, had our son, and then the Panthers went 15-1 + to the Super Bowl! While I didn't get to go to this one either, I also didn't get left behind like I did the first go around.

It's... idk, it's just a constant in my life now that I enjoy diving into as a relief from the hustle and bustle of the every day.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning that when my wife and I had first reconnected (we had known each other in HS but never seemed to be single at the same time), I was on my way back from a Panthers game. Our first date was when we beat the dog poo out of her Giants when David Wilson out of VT iirc was their RB (looks like she's getting her revenge yet again this year). I was a season ticket holder during that time and we made it a point to go to as many games as we could. Got to see the MNF game where Cam beat Brady live (after almost getting arrested before kick-off 😮), the Seahawks playoff win, the Cardinals beating, and more.

Edited by Icege
  • Beer 1
  • Flames 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Used to be the only team that I really dug into.  Knew all the players, their contracts, FO staff, how the players liked to spend their time.  Watched every game at least once, most times once more during the week.

Now?  I come on here to make sure they haven't moved to St. Louis after ever loss.

Still want them to do well, but have decided that I don't want to care enough to even have it put a frown on my face on Sunday at 4.  I have much bigger fish to fry now, and outside of fairly trying to get in front of a TB on Sunday, I couldn't care less any longer.

I'm sick of supporting bad actors, so I no longer will.

@RoaringRiot still gets my money tho.

  • Beer 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was 15 the first year the Panthers played. Before that, I was a Redskins fan because my dad was. I was a Vikings fan because of my brother. I was a Packers fan because of my older cousins. When the Panthers came about, my dad started keeping up with them. About that same time, I was going into 9th grade, and starting to drive and interested in playing sports. He actually took me to the game at Kenan when the Redskins played the Falcons when the NFL  tested the market for football in the Carolinas. Anyways, me and him started watching them religiously. It was a father/son bonding experience. Us watching Collins, Lathan, Mills, Walls, Biakabutuka, Moose, Jake, Foster, Morgan, Smitty, Peppers, Williams, Stewart, Cam, Kuechly, JJ Jansen was as much a part of Sundays as going to church was. We never missed anything. We occasionally would find time to go to a preseason game here and there. Ive never actually been to a reg season game inside of BOA. Been to multiple preseason ones though. I guess to me, the Panthers to me mean spending time with dad, whether it involves winning yells, or absolutely yelling/cussing the dog poo out of Rhule. Hopefully when son gets older, it'll mean the same to him......sans the cussing cause Rhule will be long gone by then...and also if I haven't completely given up on the Tepper run Panthers Era......which is really, really, really hard to do.

Edited by Hugor Hill
  • Beer 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


  • PMH4OWPW7JD2TDGWZKTOYL2T3E.jpg

  • Topics

  • Posts

    • This was soooo spot on about everything from the board environment to the QB guru extremist terrible takes. I wish more people on this board would elevate their energy and knowledge so we could have a fun board again. Cheers to better Panther Fan Culture.
    • Give me Mitchell Evans over T Sanders in this run heavy offense any day of the week. 
    • What's up gents, the OGs remember me, the guy who single-handedly gave the Panthers the greatest uniform in history moniker. Not too long after that I got involved with Pro Football Focus (pre-Collinsworth acquisition) and ended up taking backseat here to preserve some objectivity. But from a distance I noticed a lot. After the end of the Cam era this place devolved into the most un-fun, petty, negative cesspool of whining and bitching that has ever graced the internet. The worst part of it all is that the level of discussion turned into the most ill-informed, hot-take, unnuanced crap, rife with people talking out of their posteriors as if they have any clue about what they are watching. Once you get into the professional side of the sport and actual film rooms, you start to understand there's an absurd number of moving parts to pretty much every snap and the details you are privy to are truly only half the picture. The absolute most important thing I learned from being part of professional level football analysis is that quarterbacking is literally the most intricate and difficult position in all of professional sports, and that the NFL itself is struggling to develop any workable model that allows them to understand what makes one succeed vs what makes one fail. Because of this paradox it has also made the quarterback position itself grossly overvalued from a fan and media standpoint, creating an absurd fixation on the results delivered by a single player who has to rely on the contributions of everyone around them. This also drives the dreaded inflation of QB salaries that inevitably cause even elite teams to lose key talent all to pour cash into the one player supposed to be able to single-handedly elevate the entire team (and defense and special teams and coaching and ownership by some mysterious proxy), yet without those same players even talented teams can wander the wilderness searching for the right guy to take advantage of their talent window. The discussions the last few years around Bryce has personified this insanity, as this board has devolved into some sort of electronic civil war between the hyperbolic Young supporters and the vitriolic Bryce haters. The reality, like practically everything in this world, is somewhere in the middle. He has traits that can absolutely elevate a team with creativity, play recognition, off-arm angle throws, mental toughness, etc. He's also physically limited, with mostly "good-enough" qualities for most situations that a professional quarterback is asked to do, and will never be an overpowering physical force like pre-injury Cam. But "good-enough" physicality represents a large majority of championship-winning quarterbacks, even in the modern era. There's a reason the corpse of Peyton Manning took the chip from elite physical specimen Cam, because the team surrounding him was talented enough to get him there, while we all know Cam was the driving force of that 2015 team. That's no knock on him, that's just how the game of football tends to work: the more complete team usually wins. The summary is this: if this team lives or dies solely on the performance of its quarterback, then it is absolutely a paper tiger even if he plays brilliantly week in and out. There are no superheroes in this sport, there are only conduits that proxy the collective efforts of much of the team around them. And no one alive can tell you how the position is played perfectly, it's all a confluence of circumstance and what unique collection of traits each player brings to the position, which can never be truly recreated season after season, even for the same player on the same team. If this place remains a raging hellscape of idiotic hot takes I will happily remove myself again and do something more productive for yet another decade, but maybe's there hope that we can all get back to the old adage, and keep pounding.
×
×
  • Create New...