From chumps to champs

The Carolina Panthers pulled off the rare feat of winning their division with a losing record, earning a spot in the NFL playoffs with an 8-9 worksheet. It’s the second time Carolina has been to the postseason with a sub-.500 mark (they were 7-8-1 in 2014), and the third instance of an NFC South club doing it (Tampa Bay was tournament-bound in 2022 at 8-9).

So, will the Panthers shock the world and win Super Bowl LX?

Spoiler alert … no, they will not.

If they don’t lose to the Los Angeles Rams today in a wildcard clash in Charlotte, they’ll almost certainly fall to the Seattle Seahawks in next weekend’s divisional round.

While NFL teams with losing records have recorded victories in their playoff openers (Seattle in 2010 and Carolina in 2014), that’s as far as they’ve gotten.

But the Canadian Football League?

CFL teams on the negative side of the win-loss ledger have run the table twice.

Ten years ago – in that gridiron circuit north of the border – the Ottawa Redblacks limped into the 2016 postseason with an 8-9-1 record and came out on the other side as champions.

It was just the third year of existence for the Redblacks (Ottawa had previously been home to the Rough Riders and Renegades), and the season before the club went 12-6, won the East Division and made it all the way to the Grey Cup before losing to Edmonton, 26-20.

The 2016 campaign started off well, with Ottawa boasting a 3-0-1 record through its first four games. Things went a bit sideways from there, though, as the Redblacks stumbled to 5-9 the rest of the way.

Oddly enough, that record was still good enough to win the East – the first time a club that lost more than it won had finished atop the division.

“I think all that matters is who comes up two weeks from now and plays good football for 60 minutes,” Ottawa coach Rick Campbell stressed to the Ottawa Citizen following a regular season-ending loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. “If we win the next game, no one is going to care whether we were 9-8-1 or 8-9-1.”

He was right.

Ottawa made the most of its playoff opportunity, upsetting Edmonton, 35-23, in the East Final and then stunning the Calgary Stampeders, 39-33, in overtime to win the Grey Cup.

The Redblacks were given little chance against the mighty Stampeders, who entered the game 16-2-1.

“I don’t think we were ever a lost cause, where you said, ‘These guys are getting blown out – we have no chance,’” Campbell said to The Leader Post the Wednesday before the title clash. “That wasn’t the issue. All that matters is we are in no different situation as last year as far as having the opportunity to go to the Grey Cup and win it.”

Win it they did.

Forty-one year-old quarterback Henry Burris passed for more than 400 yards in an epic performance, and connected with Ernest Jackson on an 18-yard scoring toss in O.T. to shock the three-down world.

“If you don’t like ups and downs and that kind of stuff, then football’s not a good profession to be in,” Campbell said. “But I think that’s why everybody loves it.”

While the Redblacks put together one of football’s unlikeliest comebacks, the British Columbia Lions beat them to the punch 16 years earlier.

In 2000, BC opened the season with two victories, but slipped up with four consecutive losses. Head coach Greg Mohns resigned after seven games, and receivers coach Steve Buratto was put in charge on an interim basis.

Improving to 5-6, the Lions then suffered through a three-game skid.

At 5-9 with only four games to go, playoff hopes were dim.

However, the Vancouver side won three of their last four and snuck into the postseason as the third place team from the West with an 8-10 record.

BC won a wild opening round playoff game over Edmonton, 34-32, and claimed the West title and berth in the Grey Cup thanks to a 37-23 victory over Calgary.

The Lions completed their stunning turnaround by edging the Montreal Alouettes, 28-26, to seize the crown.

“After the season we had, this is a great feeling,” BC running back Robert Drummond, who was Grey Cup MVP with 122 rushing yards, told The Globe and Mail. “When things were going badly early in the season, we just believed.”

Added 46-year old kicker Lui Passaglia, playing the final game of his 25-year Hall of Fame CFL career, “The guys said two months ago if we could make the playoffs, we’d win the Grey Cup.”

Now, before my fellow alt-football nerds pelt me with rotten fruit for leaving this team out, I must acknowledge that the 2023 XFL also produced a club that went from also-rans to champs.

The Arlington Renegades finished second in the XFL South with a 4-6 regular season record, but that was good enough to make the spring league’s four team playoff.

Bob Stoops’ charges beat the Houston Roughnecks, 26-11, in the division finals, and surprised the DC Defenders, 35-26, in the XFL Championship Game.

While the CFL teams managed to have winning records after taking the Grey Cup, Renegades players got to wag their index fingers despite finishing at .500.

But in the NFL?

It’s hard to imagine it ever happening – although it’s fun to think it could.