The Panthers have won four straight games to move their record to 5-3 on the season, which puts the Panthers solidly in the playoff picture as the second half of the season gets underway.
Coach Ron Rivera hasn’t led the Panthers that far to this point in his tenure, but he wasn’t afraid to entertain talk about going that far on Monday.
“I’m confident in who our guys are. And I’m an optimist,” Rivera said, via the Charlotte Observer. “But the thing I want to stress is this is the next most important game we play because it’s the one we’re about, and that’s the 49ers.”
You can’t knock a four-game winning streak, but you also can’t hide the fact that the Panthers’ five wins have come against teams with an 8-33 record. The Week 10 trip to San Francisco will provide a pretty good measuring stick for where the Panthers are right now. With several other games in the future against teams currently holding winning records, it shouldn’t take long to know if the team’s worthy of more widespread confident optimism.