By Martha Sullivan
Tonight’s Eagles game at Carolina will give the Birds a chance to get to 4-3 before next week’s bye.
And it will also go a long way toward determining if the 5-0 Panthers are for real.
Prior to last week’s comeback win in Seattle, the Panthers were one of the league’s quieter stories. No more.
Carolina is now 5-0, has an impressive road scalp from the Seahawks and now gets set for a tough three-week run of home games that will be in the national spotlight, starting tonight against the Eagles.
Carolina is not only winning games, they are covering point spreads.
The Panthers are 4-1 ATS, with the only miss being a 27-22 home win over the New Orleans Saints as a (-9.5) favorite—and Carolina led that game by 12 points in the fourth quarter.
This is new territory for handicappers when it comes to the Panthers. Last season, the team’s 7-9 ATS record was slightly worse than its 7-8-1 straight-up record. In 2013, even as they went 12-4 straight-up, the Panthers were just 8-6-2 ATS. The 2015 edition of the Carolina Panthers has mostly exceeded Las Vegas expectations.
