The Carolina Panthers feel overlooked.
Undefeated and coming off a 44-16 mauling of the Washington Redskins, coach Ron Rivera was surprised to hear Monday that his 10-0 team rolls into Dallas on Thanksgiving as underdogs to the 3-7 Cowboys.
"It's nothing that we haven't seen before. You know we've had a better record in some of our other games where we were underdogs," Rivera told the media Monday. "So we are going to take it in stride. As I said, we are going to play them one at a time and as far as we are concerned everybody is 0-0 and we'll see how it comes out.
"It is a little disrespectful, I guess. But apparently they know something we don't. We are just going to prepare and get ourselves ready for Thursday. We'll show up."
It's a fair response.
In reality, the Panthers grow stronger by the week. Cam Newton is playing out of his mind, while rookie wideout Devin Funchess has emerged to give his quarterback the exciting, big-bodied target they lost when Kelvin Benjamin went down for the year. Carolina's ground game is beastly, the team is exceptionally well-coached and their fourth-ranked defense is about to get a major player back in the lineup.
As expected, the team announced that Charles Johnson will be activated on Tuesday, furnishing the frisky Panthers with another pass-rushing terror.
Johnson was placed on IR boomerang after Week 3 with a hamstring injury, but returns just in time to give Carolina a vaunted weapon against Romo and the 'Boys.
With or without him, though, the Panthers haven't just shed the underdog label -- they've carved it up and set on fire.
