The beauty of the dawning of every new NFL season is that fans of generally competent teams enter the year with hope. Hope that if the ball bounces the right way in a couple of games an otherwise 8-8 team goes 10-6, hope their team sneaks into the playoffs, then hope they get hot at the right time. As Carolina Panthers fans we have the fortune of rooting for a team that falls into the “generally competent” bucket almost every year and that includes the upcoming 2019 season.
But the goal isn’t to just sneak into the playoffs.