You can’t find very many people out there that expect all that much of the Carolina Panthers in 2025. The Panthers have finished 2-15 and 5-12 over the last two seasons, and they enter this year with a preseason over/under of just 6.5 wins, per Vegas Insider. It should come as no surprise, then, that they’re also an extreme long shot to win the Super Bowl.
But that doesn’t really matter to running back Chuba Hubbard, who says the team’s goal is to hoist the Lombardi Trophy — because why wouldn’t it be?
“If the goal isn’t to make the playoffs and win a Super Bowl, you’re selling yourself short,” Hubbard said, via The Charlotte Observer. “So that’s always been the goal. That’s the goal this year. And I think we’re the closest we’ve ever been.”
Unless the “ever” Hubbard is referencing is only about the time he’s been with the Panthers, then it would be hard to say that the team is the closest it’s “ever” been to winning the Super Bowl. The Panthers had a bunch of really good teams during the Jake Delhomme and Cam Newton eras, for example.
Sportsbooks also disagree that the Panthers are better positioned this season than they have been at any time in Hubbard’s career, though. Heading into Hubbard’s rookie year in 2021, the Panthers had +8000 Super Bowl odds, but this year they are at +12000, per FanDuel Sportsbook. If +12000 sounds like a lot, don’t worry, it is. At those odds, the Panthers are considered the sixth-least likely team to win the Super Bowl, ahead of only the Giants, Titans, Browns, Saints, Jets and tied with the Raiders.
Historically, a team in the Panthers’ situation winning the Super Bowl almost never happens. And that’s actually provable. To do this, we can turn to Pro-Football-Reference, which tracks the preseason Super Bowl odds for every team in every season.
Not since the 1999 St. Louis Rams has a team with those type of odds eventually won the Super Bowl. (Those Rams began the season with +15000 odds.) In fact, no other team since then has even come close. The next-closest team was the out-of-nowhere 2001 Patriots, but even they began the season with +6000 odds.
Since the Rams won in 1999, nine of the 25 eventual Super Bowl champions began the season with odds shorter than +1000, while 10 had odds between +1000 and +2000, five had odds between +2000 and +5000 and just one — the 2001 Patriots — had longer odds than that.
In other words, there’s almost no precedent for a team in the Panthers’ situation winning the Super Bowl. But the key word there, from the Panthers’ perspective, is obviously “almost.” Because it has, indeed, happened before. It’s just, you know, incredibly unlikely.
Go to Source
Author: Jared Dubin
June 16, 2025 | 4:30 pm
