Maybe Panthers fans are finally starting to believe in this offense.
During a recent discussion on the Carolina Panthers subreddit, one fan asked a pretty simple question: “Maybe the offense we have here is legit?”
After watching the first four games, it's a fair question.
Maybe we should stop being surprised
The Panthers have scored more than 30 points in three of their first four games and have 121 points on the season. That's the most points Carolina has ever scored through the first four games of a season, which is kind of crazy when you think about some of the offenses we've watched around here the last few years.
Carolina put up 37 against Chicago, followed that with 34 against Atlanta and then scored 32 against Detroit before the bye. Cleveland is the only team so far that has kept the Panthers under 30.
Detroit was the game that really made me start thinking about this differently. Young threw for 329 yards, Tetairoa McMillan had 14 catches for 192 yards and two touchdowns, and Carolina kept finding ways to move the football.
At some point, three games like that can't just be brushed off as a couple of good Sundays.
The other thing I like is that it doesn't feel like one guy has to do everything. McMillan has obviously been a huge part of what Carolina is doing, but Jalen Coker has made plays, Chuba Hubbard is still a big piece of the offense, and Young has more places to go with the football.
That's a much different feeling from what we've seen in Carolina lately. There have been plenty of Sundays when getting to 20 points felt like pulling teeth. Now the Panthers have gone over 30 three times in four games.
Four games isn't enough to know everything
I'm not going to sit here after four games and say Carolina suddenly has one of the best offenses in football. That's getting a little ahead of ourselves, and there are going to be games when it doesn't look this good.
But I'm also done acting like what we've seen so far doesn't mean anything.
Maybe Panthers fans are still getting used to that part. We've watched enough bad offense over the last few years that it's probably natural to see Carolina putting up points and immediately wonder when it's going to stop.
Maybe it doesn't.
We aren't even a quarter of the way through the season, so there's a long way to go. But three games with more than 30 points are enough for me to at least start looking at this offense a little differently.
That fan on Reddit asked a pretty good question.
Maybe this offense really is legit.
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