The 2015 Carolina Panthers may have fallen one step short of reaching the pinnacle of their sport, but they still made their mark.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell has named and ranked the best 25 teams from the past 25 years of the NFL. And even despite failing to ultimately hoist the Lombardi Trophy a decade ago, those Panthers came in on the list at No. 19.
Barnwell wrote the following about Carolina’s surprisingly dominant offense that season:
The main star on offense won MVP: Cam Newton threw for 3,837 yards with 35 touchdowns and added 636 rushing yards and 10 more scores on the ground. An offense whose leading wide receivers were Ted Ginn Jr. and Jerricho Cotchery shouldn’t have scared anyone, but buoyed by Greg Olsen and a creative run game, the Panthers were remarkably consistent: They scored 27 points in 15 of their 19 games, a mark that tied them with the 2007 Patriots and a handful of other teams in second place over the past 25 years. Only the 2018 Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes and a handful of other future Hall of Famers on offense, got to 27 more often. The Panthers were 15-0 when they did so.
2015 was, obviously, a career year for Newton—whose Most Valuable Player and Offensive Player of the Year awards from that campaign remain the only such honors in team history. That squad also produced a whopping 11 Pro Bowlers—including running back Jonathan Stewart, tight end Greg Olsen, center Ryan Kalil, linebackers Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis and cornerback Josh Norman.
Carolina went a franchise-best 15-1 in the regular season and ran through the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals in the playoffs en route to their second-ever NFC title. The magical ride, however, ended in Super Bowl 50—where a suffocating Denver Broncos stopped Newton and the Panthers to claim a 24-10 victory.
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This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: 2015 Panthers ranked as one of NFL’s top 25 teams since 2000