‘Must Win’ Scenario As Carolina Panthers Host New Orleans Saints On Monday Night NFL

There are few sports handicapping scenarios more pervasive—and more overrated—than the ‘must win’ situation. The reality is that teams in ‘must win’ situations rarely do. At the very least, they’re almost never a good betting value. The ‘must win’ aspect of a matchup is baked into the line meaning you’re paying a ‘premium’ to bet what is often an inferior team. During the late stages of the 2018 NFL regular season no team has faced as many ‘must win scenarios’ as the Carolina Panthers. The narrative is that at some point the veteran laden team will respond to the urgency and show up with a strong effort. The latest opponent for the ‘must win’ Carolina Panthers is a tough one—the NFL South champion New Orleans Saints.

New Orleans has already clinched their division winning 11 of their 13 games this season with a single loss at home and on the road. They’ve run away with their division to an even greater extent than the NFC West champion Los Angeles Rams. At least the Rams have another winning team in their division (the 8-5 Seattle Seahawks). For New Orleans, their closest rivals are the second place Panthers who limp into this game with a 6-7 record and riding a five game losing streak. The Panthers have had many problems this season but one of the major ones is inconsistency—they’ve been very strong at home with only one loss against five wins. On the road, however, they’ve won only once against six defeats.

Carolina head coach Ron Rivera remains a ‘true believer’. Of course it’s in his best interest to do so since it’ll be his job in serious jeopardy if the Panthers don’t pull off a very unlikely playoff run. The Panthers have a tough challenger in this game and a loss will make it six straight—the team’s first six game losing streak since 2010. That was John Fox’s last year at the Panthers helm as the team finished 2-14 making them the worst team in the NFL. Things aren’t quite that bad this season though that dubious upside won’t be enough to keep Rivera gainfully employed. After last week’s loss to the (formerly) lowly Cleveland Browns, Rivera opined that “There’s a chance – five percent. That’s what they are giving us, so that’s what we will take. … All you need is a chance.”

Rivera apparently doesn’t have a career as a math teacher to fall back on. The Panthers have a slightly better than five percent chance to make the playoffs—between 6 and 9% depending on who you ask. Even veteran defensive end Julius Peppers is drinking the postseason Kool-Aid: ”That would be a great story wouldn’t it? If we won this game and then won two more and made it in?” It might not be a redux of Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State NCAA Championship run but it would be somewhat improbable.

The reality here is that this will be the sixth ‘must win’ game for the Panthers this season and they’ve lost their previous five. They haven’t won a football game since November 4 (beat Tampa Bay 42-28) at which point they were in great shape with a 6-2 record. They’ve had plenty of opportunities to retake control of their playoff destiny but every time they haven’t closed the deal. To be fair, other than a 52-21 blowout loss at Pittsburgh on November 8 the Panthers have been competitive in every game. Four of the five games during their losing streak were on the road where they dropped verdicts to Detroit by 1, Tampa Bay by 7 and Cleveland by 6 along with a 3 point loss to Seattle at home.

Perhaps the biggest issue for the Panthers is the poor play of Cam Newton. Newton has been bothered by a nagging right shoulder injury all year and it’s clearly hurting him and impacting his performance. His accuracy has been horrific and it’s also limited Newton’s ability to throw downfield. Rivera plans to stick with Newton this week and not hand the reins over to Taylor Heinicke in his third year out of Old Dominion University. Another injury of note—kicker Graham Gano will miss his second straight game. It’s very tempting to take Carolina getting nearly a touchdown at home on the NFL betting odds board. Against many teams, it would be a no-brainer. New Orleans is just too good and still have a very significant goal as they try to lock up home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Panthers just have too many injuries, too little intensity and have themselves in too big of a hole.

BET NEW ORLEANS SAINTS -6.5 OVER CAROLINA PANTHERS