CHARLOTTE — Sunday was one win for the Carolina Panthers. A very good win, but still just one.

That enough of the people in the locker room talked about it that way was also a sign of the fundamental change that's happening here.

Beating the Rams to get to 7-6 at a my-god-do-they-need-it bye week was sweet, make no mistake.

But they also immediately put it in the context of a bigger picture.

Panthers head coach Dave Canales told his team Saturday night that their best football was still in front of them. Monday, he'll bring them in and show them the things that went wrong. Then they'll rest, and they need to.

Because they know that when they come back in a week, the stakes will be very different. Instead of slinking into another December of witness protection, and all the talk about draft position if they get talked about at all, the Panthers are suddenly and deservedly in the playoff conversation. Flexing isn't just something they'll do on the beach in a month for their Instagrams; it's something that might happen to some meaningful games down the stretch.

"I mean, that's the goal, we said this year we wanted to change the narrative," left tackle Ikem Ekwonu said. "We wanted to write our own story, and I feel like, week in and week out, we've been doing that. So I mean, it's definitely good having those conversations about the postseason.

"It feels good. I said it earlier, but these are the conversations we want to be having. Too many times, you know I don't like to speak about the past too much. Too many times around this time, talking about draft picks or talking about ruining someone's season, and that's not the conversation I want to be in this year, and I want to be in those spots for the postseason."

Ekwonu's one of the rare ones around here who have been around for a playoff push. In 2022, they made a Don Quixote run at the NFC South title under an interim coach with a lot of interim players, but the eventual change was always a subtext. They forced a division-deciding game on New Year's Day against the Bucs (partly by bludgeoning a better Lions team in awful weather by running right down their throats, sound familiar?), but they were so depleted by the time they got to Tampa, it wasn't viable or sustainable.

This time, they are going into a final month of the season that matters, now and for the future.

With seven wins, the Panthers have equalled their total from the previous seasons combined. They're clearly turning, and pointing toward a time when games like this aren't considered a novelty, but part of the expectation. And that will get harder, and that's why Canales keeps talking about the daily work that has to happen.

"The challenge for the guys Saturday night was just saying, we have seen the Rams' best football, and they've been playing amazing," Canales said. "And I said no one's seen our best yet, . . .

"Our best football is still out there in front of us, and that's our goal, is to find it."

The good news for Canales as they search for it is that he's surrounded himself with people who love the work as much as he does, if not more. It's fitting that three of the pivotal players in Sunday's drama were three of his grinders.

Derrick Brown is a major star. He's been to a Pro Bowl, and he'll go to more. So for him to deflect a pass with his face early that was picked off, and force the game-sealing fumble with a sack late was appropriate. And so was the way he talked about the team.

"I don't care who does it, how it looks, as long as it gets done," Brown said after the game. "I'll sit here, and I'll say it like this: this is the most selfless team I've been a part of. I mean, from the D-line room to the back end, we all celebrate one another.

"And that's something that I hold on a high pedestal because when you got 'me' guys, then you won't be able to form a culture here."

And then there was Chuba Hubbard. At times this year injured and nearly forgotten, he got back to the kind of metronomic running that established him and this team a year ago. When you need hard yards, ugly yards, in the cold and the rain, he's your guy. So on a day when they wanted to clutch and grab against a better team, to kill clock and keep it close so they'd have a chance late, it was a day practically created for Chuba Hubbard. And he answered early with the attention-getting (the fans' and the Rams') touchdown, and also those late slam-it-up-the-middle-for-5s late.

"I said this a few weeks ago that I prayed so many times for moments like this," Hubbard said. "Been in Carolina five years now, and the goal has been to bring wins to Carolina, bring good football to Carolina, no matter how that looks. So that's always been my goal. I know that's been the goal of other guys that have been here since way back as well, and to see it come to light now, it's just a blessing."

Hubbard's the show-up-early-stay-late guy of the organization. Three hours before kickoff on the Jugs machine, an hour before every practice. He also has the gift of bringing guys with him, the power of example that makes him worth rewarding, which is why they did. He's not going to do it any differently today, either.

"Things don't just change overnight, and we saw glimpses of it last year," Hubbard said. "And we just kept chopping away, kept chopping away, finished the way we wanted to this year. Obviously a little choppy start, but we got back to our ball and our process and it just kind of started coming to light, so it feels good."

Hubbard noted, because it's intrinsic in him, that "I still feel we haven't played our best." But there were moments in the huddle Sunday when he felt it coming, when the receivers and tight end were looking for chances to block rather than passes to catch, joining the linemen in a day built around the ground game (35 attempts for him and Rico Dowdle after they got a not-enough nine in San Francisco).

"Everybody just wanted to pound the ball and run and win the game that way," Hubbard said. "It was crazy. Everybody was just like, Hey, run that, run it towards me or bring it over here. Everyone in the huddle was saying that, so to have guys that are unselfish enough to be like whatever it takes to win, I'm going to do it, it's a special team."

And then there's the quarterback, constantly questioned because that's what happens to No. 1 overall picks. And he's been up and down at times this year, but he tends to bring it late in games. That 11th game-winning drive, with the sniper's touch of a 43-yard touchdown on fourth down to win it, that's the most in the league since he entered it.

Bryce Young is always the first to talk about the work that has to happen today, which might be why he fits so well among these people.

When Canales was asked where the resilience comes from with this team — they haven't lost back-to-back games since Week 2 — his answer was quick.

"It's humility," he replied. "It's playing games where we're humbled by not having great execution and knowing that we have to get back to our basics, our fundamentals and execution. And this is a humble group. It's the leadership of our team.

"It's Derrick Brown, and it's Bryce, and these guys are taking one game and saying we can do better than this, and rising to the challenge, making sure that we're being intentional with what we're doing every single day and how critical it is to execute on game day."

Sunday, they executed that plan to perfection, from the top of the stadium to the bottom. Canales threw in a mention for the fans that wasn't just pandering.

"It was wet, they were loud, and it was noticeable," the coach said of the fans who sat out in some brutal (for Charlotte) conditions to watch a game they weren't guaranteed a good result in.

But that's also part of what made it a moment.

In years past, the bye week was just a soft-launch for an offseason. Now, it's a chance to rest for an honest-to-god playoff push. In years past, a win like this was a shock, not something that might actually make sense when you consider how they're built.

Now things have changed in meaningful ways, and the Panthers are writing their own story, right here in front of us.