Bruce Arians would vote for Ron Rivera for Coach of the Year

“We kind of – I don’t want to say avoided the personality – but we didn’t play with that same type of personality and Atlanta got the best of us”.

After Stewart sustained a sprained foot in Week 14 against Atlanta, the Panthers hoped to give him a full month off before unleashing him in the playoffs.

Rivera said Carolina hasn’t gotten its due for everything it has accomplished even though a team-record 10 players were selected to the Pro Bowl.

“We’ll just show up Sunday and play”.

Carolina’s defense is allowing the 10th-fewest points per game with 19.9 as opposing quarterbacks have thrown more interceptions (22) than touchdowns (21) with a league-worst 74.1 passer rating.

Carolina Panthers running back Jonathan Stewart ran on the treadmill Tuesday, the most activity he has seen since spraining his foot more than three weeks ago.

“I felt like we disappointed them, I really did”, Rivera said.

Rivera said given the importance of this week’s game he may be tempted to play Stewart if he’s close to 100 percent, rather than rest him for the playoffs as originally planned.

McCoy was referring to Newton putting up career-best numbers without an elite wide receiver after Kelvin Benjamin suffered a season-ending knee injury in training came.

Rivera reminded that one of the things that have made Carolina unique is the next-man-up mentality. “Well, we’re still 14-1 and you can let that loss deflate all of the air out of your balloon”. This game is in Charlotte, though, and the Panthers no longer have to deal with the pressure of being the league’s lone unbeaten team.

“We got our ass kicked today”, Cam Newton said after the Panthers’ first loss, “and to a large degree we deserved it”. “We’ve got a next man up mentality, and I’m going to take that to the fullest“. We know what’s happened the last three games, but we have one more opportunity, ” coach Lovie Smith said.

“We’ll just do the best we can”.

“Just keep doing what we’ve been doing all year, ” he said. “It is not the end of our season, but it is the end of that streak and now it is time for us to do our job and start another one”. We’re 14-1 for a reason. “We want to have a good feeling”. “Hopefully it’s something that helps to motivate us and drive us that we have a lot to prove”.

“We don’t need to re-invent ourselves”.