{"id":656546,"date":"2026-01-05T18:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/656546\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T18:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:34:16","slug":"best-fan-reactions-to-the-panthers-winning-the-nfc-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/656546\/","title":{"rendered":"Best fan reactions to the Panthers winning the NFC South"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/carolina-panthers\/364\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Carolina Panthers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Carolina Panthers<\/a> fans have been through it.<\/p>\n<p>Going into 2025, their team hadn&#8217;t clinched a playoff berth in seven years\u2014a painful franchise-record drought. And in that time, they experienced four different full-time head coaches, three different interim head coaches, 11 different starting quarterbacks and\u2014to wrap it all up in a bow\u2014zero winning seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>They also endured the awkward transition of ownership, the organization&#8217;s ugly divorce from Cam Newton, the heartbreaking retirement of Luke Kuechly, the unfortunate departures of Christian McCaffrey, DJ Moore and Brian Burns, the embarrassing league-worst 2023 campaign and, of course, Matt Rhule.<\/p>\n<p>But a corner was finally turned on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the Atlanta Falcons&#8217; 19-17 victory over the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/new-orleans-saints\/350\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:New Orleans Saints;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">New Orleans Saints<\/a>, the Panthers <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/panthers-clinch-playoff-berth-nfc-210619417.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:captured;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">captured<\/a> their first NFC South title in a decade. They&#8217;ll now be headed into the postseason for the first time since 2017, and will <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/nfl-announces-wild-card-weekend-035505581.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:host;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">host<\/a> the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/los-angeles-rams\/343\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Rams;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Rams<\/a> to kick off the wild-card round on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Carolina faithful, for all they&#8217;ve been through, deserve this. Heck, they probably deserve some sort of tribute.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>So, this one&#8217;s for you, Panthers fans!<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of their best reactions to this long-awaited moment . . .<\/p>\n<p>Follow\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ThePanthersWire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@ThePanthersWire;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">@ThePanthersWire<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter\/X for more Panthers content.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/pantherswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/panthers\/2026\/01\/05\/panthers-playoffs-nfc-south-best-fan-reacts\/88031425007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Best fan reactions to the Panthers winning the NFC South;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Best fan reactions to the Panthers winning the NFC South<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carolina Panthers fans have been through it. Going into 2025, their team hadn&#8217;t clinched a playoff berth in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[254,1483,1476,235,260,2567,4124,7,58,55,1591,6,236],"class_list":{"0":"post-656546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-atlanta-falcons","9":"tag-brian-burns","10":"tag-bryce-young","11":"tag-carolina","12":"tag-carolina-panthers","13":"tag-carolinapanthers","14":"tag-christian-mccaffrey","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-los-angeles-rams","17":"tag-new-orleans-saints","18":"tag-nfc-south","19":"tag-nfl","20":"tag-panthers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115843934754171817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}