Carolina Panthers are NFL’s worst in Week 1. How can they change things Sunday?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
If the Carolina Panthers let history be their guide on Sunday — well, actually, they better not do that.
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No matter the coach, no matter the quarterback and no matter the game site, the Panthers have played poorly for most of their existence in Week 1 of the NFL season.
Carolina has the worst — yes, the worst — current winning percentage in season openers among all 32 NFL teams. Entering franchise season No. 32, they are 11-20 overall in Week 1 games, winning 35.5% of the time. They have gone 0-4 in their last four season openers.
With Bryce Young as their starting quarterback the past three seasons, the Panthers have been disturbingly consistent in their Week 1 deficiencies, losing 26-10, 47-10 and 24-10. In every one of those three games, Young has misfired for two interceptions and thrown for somewhere between 146 and 161 yards as Carolina scored exactly 10 points. It’s sometimes been boring, and it’s routinely been ugly.
The Panthers start out 0-1 as reliably as Michigan gets an extra second from a magical “secret clock” no one ever knew existed to throw an extra Hail Mary pass in home games — which is to say, way too often.
But Carolina is hoping no one remembers any of that history Sunday, when at 1 p.m. they kick off the 2026 NFL season against the Chicago Bears in Charlotte. The Bears, by the way, are 2-8 in their last 10 season openers.
The Panthers made the playoffs last season and believe — as do the 31 other NFL teams — that they are better this year.
“It’s very exciting,” new Carolina inside linebacker Devin Lloyd said Monday, “because we know what we have. But at the end of the day, it’s all on paper. None of that means anything until we go out there and we prove it on Sunday.”
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Exactly.
The Panthers think they have a better pass rush this year, especially due to the addition of edge rusher Jaelan Phillips. They think they can get the job done on the offensive line, even though they’ve had to replace both of their starting tackles due to injuries. They think that running back Jonathon Brooks is finally ready to be a home-run threat, even though Brooks has missed 31 of a possible 34 games in his NFL career so far due to knee injuries and has been sitting out practices lately due to “general soreness.”
Many of the Panthers right now seem to feel like Robert Hunt, the team’s star offensive guard who missed almost all of 2025 with a torn biceps tendon, then played in the playoff game although he wasn’t at full strength and now is aching to see what a real game will feel like.
“I’ve got a lot of nerves,” Hunt said Monday. “We’ll see how it goes… It’s been a minute. This is unfamiliar territory… You know, I’m usually confident in what I do. But I haven’t played, you know what I mean?”
The Panthers also haven’t played a game that mattered for nine months, since ending up on the wrong side of that January playoff thriller against the L.A. Rams. That game very much looked like it showcased a Carolina team on the rise, and Young in practice at training camp has looked the best he’s ever been.
Still, the Bears went 11-6 last year compared to Carolina’s 8-9, won a playoff game the same weekend that the Panthers couldn’t and then took the Rams to the wire themselves before getting knocked out in the second round. They are a formidable first-week foe, beginning with mobile quarterback Caleb Williams, which is why Chicago is favored by three points on the road.
For the Panthers to win this one, I’d wager these three things need to happen:
If not, Carolina will be 0-1 again.
The last time the Panthers started 1-0, by the way, was 2021, when Sam Darnold (the future Super Bowl-winning QB) threw for 279 yards in a 19-14 win over the New York Jets. That was five years and a couple of coaches ago.
As Hunt said about his own journey: It’s been a minute. On Sunday, we will see if it’s finally time for a change.
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