The Carolina Panthers haven’t won a playoff game in nearly a decade. Their most recent postseason victory came on Jan. 24, 2016, when Cam Newton and a suffocating defense dismantled the Arizona Cardinals 49-15 in the NFC Championship Game at Bank of America Stadium. That was 3,639 days ago.
An entire generation of Panthers fans has grown up without witnessing a playoff win, but that drought could end on Saturday afternoon. The Panthers will host the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round, their first home playoff game since that dominant win over Arizona and their first postseason appearance since a 2017 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
2016 NFC Championship: Carolina’s Dominant Win Over Arizona
The Panthers entered the 2016 NFL Playoffs as the NFC’s top seed with a 15-1 record, fresh off Newton’s MVP campaign. Arizona came in at 13-3, boasting the league’s No. 2 scoring offense behind Carson Palmer and Larry Fitzgerald.
Carolina scored on its first three possessions and led 17-0 after one quarter. Newton finished 19-of-28 for 335 yards and two touchdowns while adding two rushing scores, becoming the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to throw for 300-plus yards and run for multiple touchdowns in a playoff game. Corey Brown hauled in four catches for 113 yards and a score. The offensive line gave Newton time to operate, and the ground game churned out 83 yards on the legs of Jonathan Stewart.
The defense was even more dominant. Palmer threw four interceptions and lost two fumbles — his six turnovers tied the all-time postseason record. Luke Kuechly punctuated the rout with a 22-yard pick-six in the fourth quarter, his second interception return for a touchdown in consecutive playoff games after picking off Russell Wilson in the divisional round against Seattle. Carolina forced seven turnovers in total and held Arizona to 287 yards.
The Panthers advanced to Super Bowl 50, where they lost 24-10 to Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. That core of Newton, Kuechly, Josh Norman, Greg Olsen, and Co. seemed so promising, but they would never win another playoff game together. The franchise hasn’t won one since.
Panthers-Rams Wild Card Preview
The 2025 Panthers bear little resemblance to that 2016 juggernaut. They won the NFC South with an 8-9 record, the fifth team in NFL history to reach the playoffs with a losing record. Their minus-69 point differential is among the worst for any playoff team ever. They’re massive underdogs at home even though they upset this Rams team in Week 13.
That 31-28 upset featured the kind of complementary football head coach Dave Canales has preached all season. Bryce Young went 15-for-20 for 206 yards and three touchdowns. The Panthers ran it 40 times for 164 yards. The defense forced Matthew Stafford into three turnovers, including Mike Jackson’s pick-six.
“I’m so fired up for Bryce and for the whole crew,” Canales said Tuesday. “These are the moments. When we’ve put Bryce into these high-stakes situations, he’s performed well.”
Young, the No. 1 overall pick in 2023, will make his first NFL playoff start on Saturday. He’s played in pressure cookers before, including a national championship at Alabama. But the NFL postseason is different, and the Panthers have 31 players on the roster who have never experienced it.
“Confidence for us comes from within the building,” Young told reporters. “We trust in each other.”
The Panthers need their quarterback to replicate his Week 13 efficiency. They need Chuba Hubbard and Rico Dowdle to control the clock. They need Derrick Brown to terrorize Stafford the way he did six weeks ago, when his strip-sack sealed the victory. And they need the crowd at Bank of America Stadium — absent from playoff football for a decade — to make life miserable for a Rams offense that thrives on rhythm and timing.
Jake Delhomme, who quarterbacked five of Carolina’s nine all-time playoff wins and now works as the team’s radio analyst, wants to see Young let loose.
“The biggest thing is Bryce, ‘Hey, go play,'” Delhomme said. “Go play with all the confidence in the world. Let it hang out on the field. This team follows you.”
The last time Panthers fans celebrated a playoff win, Newton was dabbing his way to the Super Bowl and Kuechly was making quarterbacks pay for every throw over the middle. Saturday offers a chance to create new memories, to give a franchise starving for postseason success something to build on going forward.
