By: JJ Lanier

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

At this point in the NFL season you pretty much have an idea where every team stands.

Sure, there may be an anomaly like the Kansas City Chiefs last year, who started out 1-5 and then went on the win their final 10 games, but for the most part there aren’t too many big surprises.

In the case of the Carolina Panthers, they are basically the NFL’s version of HBO’s “Vinyl”. There are high expectations at the beginning of the season due to the person who gets top billing, his supporting cast, and the people behind the scenes who put everything together.

Only it turns out halfway through the season you realize you now spend your Sundays not only wishing for it all to be over, but you’re watching episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm instead because you need a good laugh.

Needless to say, the 2016 campaign that started out with hopes of another possible Super Bowl appearance more or less came to an end when Carolina lost to those aforementioned Chiefs, 17-20 this past weekend.

Sure, they’re not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs as of yet, but at 3-6 they might as well be.

The Kansas City loss was actually fairly apropos when you look at the Panthers season as a whole. Much like those lofty expectations to start the year, the Panthers had a lot going for them coming into the weekend.

After a two game winning streak, where it looked like the Panthers Defense was starting to come around and Jonathan Stewart returned to the backfield, things were starting to go their way.

Even though they entered the game 3-5 a win, coupled with what ended up being an Atlanta loss, would put Carolina in better position than you would normally expect for a sub .500 team. Well, obviously, that didn’t happen.

Carolina played like the better team for most of the game, but like in a number of losses they’ve had this year, they just couldn’t close it out in the end. I can almost count on the missed opportunities and mental mistakes taking place about as often as Bobby Cannavale’s character doing lines of coke, which was just about every week.

Even if Carolina were to avenge all three of their NFC South losses from earlier this year, which is a huge “if”, they still play both the Raiders and Seattle on the road, in back to back weeks, followed by a much improved San Diego Chargers team in Charlotte.

Throw in the Washington game and 8-8 is about the best any Panthers fan can realistically hope for. Even a record of 9-7 probably wouldn’t be enough for a playoff appearance.

Over the next two months there will be a lot of talk about “showing what they’re made of” and “getting a jumpstart on next year” which I’ve always thought was a load of crap. The Jaguars finished last season on a tear and was a popular pick to win the AFC South. How is that whole “jumpstart on next year” thing working out for them?

And putting forth a courageous effort? How is playing hard the remainder of this season going to have any impact on next year?