\n Charlotte natives on Panthers’ memories and resurgence<\/p>\n
Much has been made the past two weeks of Drake Maye’s only other Super Bowl memory, when the Charlotte native attended the last Super Bowl in the Bay Area, featuring the Panthers versus the Broncos.<\/p>\n
“It’s full circle,” Maye told reporters after the AFC Championship game. “My dad, when I was maybe in seventh grade, said if the Panthers made it, we were going to go. It was heartbreaking; they lost to the Broncos. But no, it was a good experience for a kid my age who loved football, loved quarterbacks. That was Peyton [Manning]’s last game. What a [Pro Football] Hall of Fame career he’s had.<\/p>\n
“Pretty cool to be full circle, going back here 10 years later, and I think it’s just a special moment for this whole team.”<\/p>\n
His starting center, Garrett Bradbury, is also a Charlotte native, but “(Drake’s) a little younger than me,” the seven-year NFL veteran laughed. “I’m more his older brother’s ages.”<\/p>\n
And while Bradbury wasn’t in the Bay Area for the Panthers’ Super Bowl appearance 10 years ago like Maye, and jokes he spent more time as a college fan growing up, he’s proudly watched from afar the last year as the city he calls home has become a proud sports town once again.<\/p>\n
“When they were winning, I was a Panthers fan because you could not be,” joked Bradbury, before continuing, “Charlotte’s a funny place because when they’re winning, it’s a great football town. When they’re not winning, it’s tough, and so when they were winning it was, it was a lot of fun to be a part of.<\/p>\n
“But (even) the Hornets are on fire now too, so, I mean, there’s a sports city there waiting, that’s for sure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlotte natives on Panthers’ memories and resurgence Much has been made the past two weeks of Drake Maye’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[79,235,260,2567,7,81,6942,6,236,1453],"class_list":{"0":"post-727676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-app-news","9":"tag-carolina","10":"tag-carolina-panthers","11":"tag-carolinapanthers","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-luke-kuechly","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-panthers","17":"tag-tetairoa-mcmillan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116009899605247778","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727676","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=727676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}