CHARLOTTE — The Panthers are taking a much-deserved bye week before returning for a home stretch that could determine a playoff appearance. Carolina hasn't made the playoffs since 2017, when the club finished second in the NFC South. In 2022, they finished second as well, but did not qualify with a 7-10 record.

The Panthers currently sit at seven wins with four games on deck. They are half a game behind the Bucs in the division and will play them twice in the final three weeks. In other words, the next month is going to be intense, highly-important, and the most exciting stretch of games the Panthers have played in years.

While there is no opponent this week, let's conduct a self-scout, just like the Panthers' coaches will, to assess where the team stands before the final quarter of games.

And since you have nothing else to do this week, don't forget to vote for your Panthers in the Pro Bowl!

Bryce Young has ups and downs but hitting a stride

The Panthers quarterback has had games all over the spectrum this season. Bryce Young has had wins in which he threw for 102 yards and no touchdowns, losses in which he put up 328 yards and three touchdowns. He set a franchise record for most passing yards in a game one week, followed that with a multi-interception game, and then capped the three-game stretch with the highest passer rating in his career, a near-perfect 147.1.

What does that all mean? It means Young, like his receiving corps, coaching staff, and Panthers team as a whole, is growing into this season. And growing pains contain multitudes.

Young has been a game manager at times this season, allowing the run game to do what was needed, such as in the win over the Packers at Lambeau Field. And a game manager is not a bad thing; they control the game and keep it from turning into a loss. He's also been a point guard, tossing it to nine different receivers in the win against the Falcons when he set that franchise record with 448 yards.

It is perhaps the win against the Rams, though, that (hopefully) provides the best picture of what Young has, can, and will be for this Panthers offense. After a disappointing loss against the 49ers, he and the offense bounced back on a short week against the top-seeded team in the NFC. Young was decisive, getting the ball out quickly and efficiently to negate the Rams' pass rush as much as possible, while also feeling the pocket and escaping when it broke through. When the offensive line gave him enough time, Young made the Rams pay, such as the fourth-and-2 touchdown throw to Tetairoa McMillan.

The biggest takeaway about Young in that Rams game, and one that has come to define him over and over this season, is how clutch the former No. 1 overall pick was. Now including Sunday's win, he has 11 game-winning drives in his young career. He becomes the youngest player in NFL history to reach that number (surpassing some guy named Josh Allen).

Sometimes those game-winning drives mean letting Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard take over. Sometimes, they mean getting the ball spotted for Ryan Fitzgerald. Sometimes they mean making huge throws. Regardless of the circumstances, they all require a calm quarterback in a rotating huddle. As the Panthers head into arguably one of the most important four-game stretches they've had in three years, that clutch ability could be one of the most important aspects of their games.

Tetairoa McMillan tops all rookies, Jalen Coker heating up

One of the reasons Young has started to hit a stride in recent weeks is the growth of his young receivers. The Panthers made a decision about a quarter of the way through the season to work through the growing pains of a young receiving corps, believing the payoff of having everyone on the same growth trajectory would be worth it in the long haul.

It's unlikely anyone thought it would start paying off this early, though.

The group, as a whole, is likely still a year away from truly taking on the entire playbook as an offense, but Dave Canales and staff have begun to work with the innate talents and strengths each has, while receivers coach Rob Moore pushes them forward each week.

In no two receivers is this more evident than McMillan and Jalen Coker. The Top-10 pick and second-year UDFA can each take a chunk of the field, forcing defenses to cover both of them, and spreading everything out as a result.

McMillan is the best rookie pass-catcher in the NFL—literally, he leads all rookie pass-catchers in the entire league with 826 yards—a mantle he took from Emeka Egbuka around mid-season and has refused to give up since. He and Egbuka are tied with six touchdowns each. It should make for an interesting storyline in Weeks 16 and 18.

Not only does TMac lead all rookies, but he is in the Top 7 in the NFL in total yardage, is tied for fourth in the league for "Big" plays (20-plus yard receiving plays), is tied for 11th most touchdowns, and has the sixth-most first down conversions (46) of all pass-catchers.

It is quite a campaign for rookie of the year, an award for which he is currently the odds-on favorite to win.

McMillan has been able to get open more in recent weeks due to Jalen Coker's ascension. The second-year receiver was sidelined for the first six weeks of the season with a quad injury. As he returned, Canales folded him in slowly so as not to rush him back too quickly. Versus the Falcons in Week 11, Coker pulled in four catches for 52 yards, including a crucial two-point conversion.

Then, on Sunday against the Rams, Coker was Young's favorite target, pulling in four receptions on six targets for 74 yards and a touchdown on fourth down that put the Panthers back in the lead. It was the culmination of what Canales has been preaching for the past month: that for this offense to really hit its stride, the coaching staff needed to get Coker more involved.

They have, and the results speak for themselves.

Derrick Brown has changed the defense

If McMillan is the odds-on favorite to win rookie of the year for his impact and production, then Derrick Brown is arguably one of the biggest comeback players of the year. The defensive tackle has changed the Panthers' defense on and off the field this season, after missing the 2024 season with a meniscus injury.

This season, Brown has pushed everyone around him to improve, helping pull a defense that was dead last in NFL history in production last season into a middle-of-the-pack unit that even spent the first half of the season in the Top 10 of the league. So much of that, from coaches to the locker room, has been attributed to Brown. He has demanded more of his team in practices, during halftimes, on the sideline, and they have answered his call.

Brown has also backed up every bit of his talk with dynamic play. The push he, A'Shawn Robinson, Bobby Brown III, and Tershawn Wharton have gotten up front has helped raise the play of the linebackers, a unit that has seen upheaval due to injuries in recent weeks without huge drops in play. And Brown leads all defensive linemen in the league with seven batted passes, tips that have led to crucial interceptions.

And then there's the sack. In the most crucial moment of Sunday's game against the Rams, with Matthew Stafford and two of the best receivers in the league knocking on the red zone, Brown had a strip sack on Stafford that gave the Panthers the ball back to win the game.

He's a game-wrecker, a game-changer, and a program-leader. It will be his voice that helps lead the locker room through this gauntlet of a final stretch.

Ryan Fitzgerald is Mr. Cool

The Panthers have to play the Bucs twice in the final four weeks, the Seattle Seahawks, another NFC contender, and the Saints, which, on paper, has a 2-10 record, but one of those wins came against the Panthers.

It all adds up to a lot of game-winning field-goal opportunities. The Panthers seem set in that area, with a rookie who has stepped into some of the biggest moments of the season and not been ruffled once.

It was Fitzgerald who knocked through the game-winner to defeat the Cowboys in Week 6, the huge 49-yarder in a windy Lambeau to knock off the Packers, and a game-winner in overtime to take down Atlanta in Week 11.

Those three field goals all came in different circumstances, weather, and areas of the field. But Fitzgerald has handled them all with an ease that has given his team complete confidence, a kind that leads Jaycee Horn to abandon his superstitions and actually watch the field goals, so should they need to lean on him through this final stretch, the rookie will deliver.