(5-7) took their bye week and will now look towards a home date agains the Atlanta Falcons (+2.5), who hold the same 5-7 record.
But perhaps a bye week was better than the alternative for the Panthers these days, which is heavy media criticism. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop NFL media from dropping the Panthers down by one spot in the power rankings.
The Panthers have lost three of their last four and now have five games left: two against teams with losing records and three against teams with winning records.
Aggregating several rankings, the Panthers come out to an average of No.