Fans of the Carolina Panthers have spent years selling themselves on the idea that ‘this year’ would be the year that a long standing team weakness would suddenly become a strength. Every season has opened with the hope that a new undrafted free agent could be the next Steve Smith, that the likes of Byron Bell could truly fill the shoes of Jordan Gross.
The hope has never truly been that a knight in shining armor would come riding out of the forest in our moments of distress so much as that leadership would notice there was distress in the first place.