The 2003 Carolina Panthers went 11-5 and won the NFC title as 28-1 preseason long shots a year after going 7-9 and two years removed from 1-15.
But they didn’t produce the biggest single-season turnaround in franchise history. That distinction belongs to the 2015 Panthers, who improved from 7-8-1 to 15-1 and are the third-biggest long shot, at 30-1, ever to win the NFC championship.
Quarterback Cam Newton directed the league’s highest-scoring offense (31.3 points per game) that season en route to NFL MVP honors. Carolina, which started 14-0, beat the Seahawks 31-24 in the divisional playoffs before crushing the Cardinals 49-15 in the conference title game.
The Panthers lost 24-10 to the Broncos in Super Bowl 50.
Here are the two biggest long shots to win the NFC championship, according to sportsoddshistory.com:
2. 2016 Atlanta Falcons, 40-1
Quarterback Matt Ryan was at the controls of one of the highest-scoring offenses in NFL history (33.8 ppg) en route to winning the league MVP award. The Falcons improved from 8-8 to 11-5 to earn the No. 2 seed in the playoffs. They smoked the Seahawks 36-20 in the divisional round of the playoffs before whipping the Packers 44-21 to win the NFC title.
Atlanta appeared en route to another rout in the Super Bowl, when it led New England 28-3 midway through the third quarter. But it was all Tom Brady and the Patriots after that as they stormed back with 25 unanswered points to force the first overtime in Super Bowl history on their way to an improbable 34-28 victory.
1. 1999 St. Louis Rams, 75-1
Kurt Warner took a job stocking supermarket shelves after going undrafted in 1994. Five years later, when he replaced Trent Green as Rams starting quarterback after Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason, then-St. Louis’ Super Bowl odds shot up to 150-1 a year after it finished 4-12.
That number plummeted as Warner quickly transformed the Rams into “The Greatest Show on Turf” and earned NFL MVP honors during a spectacular 13-3 regular season in which St. Louis led the league in scoring (32.9 ppg) and topped 30 points in 12 games.
The Rams, in their first playoff appearance in 10 years, beat the Vikings in a 49-37 shootout in the divisional round and held off the Buccaneers 11-6 in the NFC championship game. St. Louis beat Tennessee 23-16 in the Super Bowl for the franchise’s first NFL title since 1951.
Contact reporter Todd Dewey at [email protected]. Follow @tdewey33 on X.
