Carolina Panthers

Overview

The Carolina Panthers are a National Football League (NFL) franchise that plays in the South division of the National Football Conference (NFC). The team plays its home games in Charlotte, North Carolina, but represents a sixteen-county area of North and South Carolina. Since joining the NFL as the league’s twenty-ninth franchise, the team has seen mixed results, recording a cumulative 214-252–1 regular season record and 9–8 playoff record as of the 2023 season. The Panthers have reached the playoffs on eight occasions and the Super Bowl twice. Since its establishment as a team, the Panthers have had nine head coaches. The Panthers play in Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, which, since a 2017 expansion, seats 75,523 people and is the eighth largest in the NFL.

Quick Facts

Inaugural season: 1995

Home field: Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, North Carolina

Owner: David Tepper

Team colors: Black, blue, silver

The Panthers continue to have a very loyal fan base despite the team’s mixed results on the field. For the 2023 season, the team averaged 71,635 fans per game, the eighth-best attendance rate among all NFL teams. In part due to the continuing loyalty of its fan base, the Panthers were estimated by Forbes magazine as being worth $4.1 billion in 2023 and one of the fifty most valuable sports franchises in the world.

History

Charlotte was granted an NFL franchise in 1993 after an extensive effort by the city and its supporters. A group of investors started the momentum towards bringing a team in the city in 1987. The effort was led by Jerry Richardson, a former wide receiver for the Baltimore Colts in the late 1950s who famously caught a touchdown pass in the 1959 NFL Championship game. Richardson co-owned the first franchised branches of the Hardee’s fast-food chain. Over the course of his career in the food industry, he eventually became the chief executive officer for one of the largest food service companies in the United States. Richardson was spurred by the success of Charlotte in gaining the expansion National Basketball Association (NBA) Charlotte Hornets in 1987, the city’s first professional sports franchise.

Richardson gathered like-minded investors to create an investment team he called Richardson Sports. During the next few years, the group campaigned to have several preseason NFL games played in the greater Charlotte region. In 1991, Charlotte joined ten other cities bidding to gain an expansion team. By 1993, the field of candidates was cut to five: Baltimore, Jacksonville, Memphis, St. Louis, and Charlotte, which had been presented as a team representing the Carolinas. In addition to strong fan support, Charlotte demonstrated its commitment to a new team by selling out all premium seat and luxury boxes for a proposed stadium within a single day.

The Carolina bid was widely regarded as the favorite for one of the expansion teams. Their efforts were rewarded on October 23, 1993, when the NFL approved the bid and awarded Carolina a franchise. Unlike most newer franchises, Richardson elected to bypass focus groups to pick the team nickname and colors. He had zeroed in on the Panthers as the team name from the very start, saying he liked the powerful and sleek imagery of the animal. He independently selected the team colors of black, silver, and blue, settling on a specific shade of blue that fell between the school colors of the nearby University of North Carolina and Duke University.

Richardson hired respected Pittsburgh Steeler defensive coordinator Dom Capers to be the team’s first coach. The players were gathered from a combination of free agency, the 1995 NFL Draft, and an NFL expansion draft—current NFL players not protected by their teams were eligible to be drafted by the Panthers. These avenues proved to be better sources of skilled players than had been available to previous expansion teams. In its first season of existence, the team went 7–9, setting a record for most wins by an NFL expansion team. In its second year, the Panthers recorded a 12–4 mark, enabling them to win their first division title and enter the playoffs. They claimed their first playoff victory with a win over the Dallas Cowboys, 26–17, before losing to the Green Bay Packers, 30–13, in the conference championship.

Despite this early success, the Panthers regressed to 7–9 and 4–12 records in 1997 and 1998 respectively. This lack of improvement ultimately cost Capers his job and he was fired after four seasons with the Panthers. He was replaced by George Seifert, who had led the San Francisco Giants to Super Bowl victories in 1989 and 1994. He was unable to replicate this success with Carolina as the team sunk to a league-worst 1–15 in 2001, his third with the team. He was fired after three seasons with a 16–32 record with the Panthers.

The Panthers tapped New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox to guide the team as its third coach. He was able to improve to 7–9 in 2002. In 2003, he guided Carolina to an 11–5 record and a berth in the Super Bowl. This incarnation of the team was referred to as the “Cardiac Cats” due to several close extremely close games. After defeating Dallas, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, the Panthers lost a tight game to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Though Carolina tied the game at 29 with just over a minute left, Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal with four seconds remaining to give New England the title. The two teams combined for thirty-seven points in the final quarter.

Despite taking Carolina to two more playoffs—in 2006 and 2008—Fox was unable to build a consistent team and was fired in 2010 after going 2–14, the second-worst record in team history. After an extensive coaching search, the Panthers turned to Ron Rivera, the defensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers. Rivera was able to slowly build the team into playoff contenders, taking the Panthers from 6–10 in 2011 to 12–4 in 2013 and their first playoff berth since 2008. The team regressed to a 7–8–1 record in 2014, though due to a fluke in the NFC standings they were able to qualify for the playoffs with a losing record. They recorded a 27–16 victory over the Arizona Cardinals before falling to the Seattle Seahawks 31–17.

The team was able to build upon its late season success in 2014 into the 2015 season. Behind quarterback Cam Newton, the Panthers recorded fourteen straight victories to start the season. They continued their strong performance into the postseason with victories over Seattle and Arizona to claim the first NFC Championship in team history. Despite having the best record in the league, Carolina lost to Denver in Super Bowl 50. The Panthers continued their streaky play between 2016 and 2018. After reaching the Super Bowl, the Panthers fell to 6–10 in 2016, improved to 11–5 in 2017, before regressing and falling to 7–9 in 2018.

Panthers owner David Tapper fired longtime head coach Ron Rivera during the 2019 regular season. When asked why he let Rivera go with four games left to play, Tapper stated that he wanted to start interviewing candidates to replace Rivera and did not want to do so behind Rivera's back, as a matter of respect. The franchise had once been known for its relatively stable coaching staff, but cycled through six head coaches between 2019 and January 2024 when Dave Canales was hired.

Notable players

The Panthers had three players and a general manager enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame by 2023. Fifteen-year veteran and 2006 hall-of-fame inductee Reggie White played his final season with Carolina in 2000. Linebacker Kevin Greene, a 2016 inductee, played for the Panthers in 1996 and again from 1998 to 1999. During his fifteen-year career with four teams, Greene was a five-time Pro Bowl selection and the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1996 with the Panthers. Linebacker Sam Mills played for the Panthers from 1995 to 1997, then stayed on as an assistant coach from 1998 to 2003, when his career was cut short by cancer. He died in 2005 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame posthumously in 2022.

Mills had also been inducted into the Panthers Hall of Honor in 1998. The Panthers Hall of Honor also includes former team president Mike McCormack (inducted 1997), tight end Wesley Walls (2019), quarterback Jake Delhomme (2019), offensive tackle Jordan Gross (2019), wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. (2019), wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad (2023), and defensive end Julius Peppers (2023). In February 2024, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced that Peppers had been selected for its inductee class of 2024.

By 2023, the team's all-time leaders were quarterback Cam Newton (2011–19, 2021) for passing; wide receiver Steve Smith (2001–13) for receiving; Jonathan Stewart (2008–17) for rushing; and kicker John Kasay (1995–2010) for scoring. The franchise's winningest coach was Ron Rivera.

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