The Panthers are 3-2, have won three of their last four and just left Philadelphia with a 25-14 win. Apparently, that's enough for at least one national writer to put Carolina among the 10 best teams in football.
USA TODAY's Nate Davis has the Panthers at No. 10 in his latest NFL power rankings. Davis focused on what Bryce Young has done through five games, and it's easy to see why.
Young is averaging 309.8 passing yards per game, which leads the NFL, and he's coming off another solid performance against the Eagles. He finished with 281 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions in a game Carolina controlled for most of the afternoon.
So is No. 10 too high? I think it probably is, at least for now. But I don't think it's nearly as ridiculous as it would've sounded when the season started.
Carolina is starting to look like a pretty good football team
The Panthers have played five games and won three of them. They've also won three of their last four, and I'm starting to think this might be more than just a good stretch.
A lot of that starts with Young. He has thrown for 1,549 yards and 11 touchdowns through five games, while Carolina's 146 points are the most the franchise has ever scored through the first five games of a season.
The encouraging part is that it hasn't just been Young carrying everything. Chuba Hubbard ran for 120 yards Sunday, Jalen Coker returned with 97 receiving yards and Tetairoa McMillan added 86.
We've been waiting to see what this offense would look like once Coker and McMillan were on the field together. Sunday gave us our first real look, and I liked what I saw.
The defense did its part, too. Philadelphia finished with only 222 total yards and 35 on the ground, and the Panthers have now held an opponent under 50 rushing yards in back-to-back games.
Put all of that together and I don't have much trouble saying Carolina is a good football team right now. Putting the Panthers among the 10 best teams in the league is where I'm not quite there yet.
No. 10 is still a little rich for me
I'm not going to ignore who Philadelphia was missing Sunday. Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley didn't play, and the Eagles were also without their top three running backs. If we're going to use that win as the reason for moving Carolina this high, that has to be part of the conversation.
The 13 penalties for 149 yards bother me, too. Carolina had eight for 105 yards in the first half alone, and against a healthier offense, that probably gets you beat.
At the same time, I'm not going to knock the Panthers for winning a game they were supposed to win. We've watched this team do the opposite plenty of times.
That's why Sunday's win felt a little different. Carolina made enough mistakes to give Philadelphia chances to hang around, but instead of finding a way to give the game away, the Panthers finished it.
If I were doing my own power rankings today, I'd probably have Carolina around 12 or 13. That feels about right to me. The Panthers have shown enough that putting them in the top half of the league shouldn't be controversial anymore, but I need another win or two before I'm putting them in the top 10.
Tampa Bay comes to Charlotte on Sunday with first place in the NFC South on the line. If Carolina beats the Buccaneers and moves to 4-2, I'll have a much harder time arguing with Davis next week.
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