Monday Morning Optimist: Let’s talk about the playoffs

The 2-7 Carolina Panthers, everybody’s favorite bet for the worst team in the NFL, just moved up in the race to make the 2024 playoffs, per NFL.com. That’s right, they’re now in 13th place (out of 16) in the NFC, ahead of the 2-7 New Orleans Saints and the 2-7 New York Giants. What luck that those are the opponents the Panthers are currently sandwiched between right now. Most people would say that the Panthers-Giants game in Munich has huge implications for the top of the 2025 NFL Draft, but we can technically also say that it has huge playoff implications.

Now that that bit of frivolity is out of the way, let’s try and remember how we really talk about wins. Beating the Saints is always…