CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This was scheduled to be a celebration of Cam Newton, the validation of his greatness as a player. The postseason was going to be the time for Newton, the presumed league MVP, to prove he could carry a franchise to a ring ceremony and a parade just as easily as he could carry it to a 15-1 record.
Newton was the one who elevated the Carolina Panthers to a state of near perfection, after all. He was the one who imposed his considerable will on the entire league for more than four months and lived to dance and dab and tell about it.
But something kinda funny happened on the way to an NFC Championship Game date with Arizona. Roaring out of the tunnel of Bank of America Stadium wasn't a Super Bowl-worthy quarterback, but a Super Bowl-worthy team. In their 31-24 elimination of the Seattle Seahawks, an opponent that would have arrived as a two-time defending champ if not for a wayward play call and pass, the Panthers announced to a legion of skeptics that they are far greater than the sum of Newton's parts.
Jonathan Stewart was the Panther who shattered Seattle's confidence on the first play from scrimmage, breaking into the clear for 59 yards before scoring three plays later. Star Lotulelei was the Panther who silenced Marshawn Lynch in a way no credentialed reporter could, dropping him for a 3-yard loss on Seattle's first play. Kawann Short was the Panther who hit Russell Wilson on Seattle's second play, forcing a pass about as unfortunate as the one Wilson threw to New England's Malcolm Butler on the goal line last winter, and giving Luke Kuechly an interception and a free lane to the end zone.
Stewart scored again to make it a three-touchdown lead, and a Cortland Finnegan interception (off a Mario Addison hit on Wilson) set up a field goal that made it 24-0. By the time Newton was invited to the party, it was pretty much time to turn out the lights. He threw a touchdown pass to Greg Olsen in the back of the end zone, and truth be told, Olsen's catch -- with Jeremy Lane draped all over him -- was more impressive than Newton's throw.
"M-V-P ... M-V-P," the fans chanted at their quarterback. It was their way of giving back after Newton had spent the year giving so many touchdown balls to their daughters and sons.
It was 31-0 not even 24 minutes into the game. Thirty-one to nothing against a Seattle team that should have been talking about dynastic ambitions this season, and a Seattle defense that had allowed a league-low 277 points across the regular season, or 17.3 per game.
What a statement. What a team. In the end, pay little attention to the Seattle comeback in the second half, as human nature conspired against the home team. No matter how loudly head coach Ron Rivera and his assistants barked at them to remain aggressive, the Panthers turned as conservative as most athletes do when the scoreboard is tilted so dramatically in their favor.
"It's tough," Olsen said. "You're up 31-0 and you don't want to give them life, you don't want to give them a spark. ... It's a fine line." The Panthers were never going to lose this game, and Seattle's onside kick with 76 seconds to play illustrated why. Carolina had spent part of Saturday night watching the Seahawks' successful onside kick against Green Bay last year, and had enough faith that Thomas Davis, a 32-year-old linebacker and survivor of three ACL tears -- three! -- was capable of fielding the knuckleball that would come his way.
"We kept giving him crap about it every time we'd be on special teams on Saturdays when we do that drill," Josh Norman said. "We'd be like, 'Thomas can't catch.' We'd just be playing with him. And look at him: He ended up sealing the game for us with his hands."
Davis held on to the bouncing ball while he was being cut in half by Seattle's Derrick Coleman, and soon enough Newton and the Panthers were doing a victory lap and high-fiving the fans. Carolina was feeling high on life, liberated from the apocalyptic possibility of losing this playoff opener after delivering such a dominant regular season. If it didn't seem fair that a No. 1 seed would have to open with a team as dangerous as Seattle, well, it wasn't.
And the Panthers had heard it all before Sunday, too. They were said to be the most vulnerable 15-1 team in the history of mankind, and the inflated product of a weak schedule and a weak division. Maybe more than anything, they were said to be the inflated product of a spectacular dual-threat quarterback.
"A weekly thing," Jerricho Cotchery called the doubting of his team.
"At the beginning of the season," Mike Tolbert said, "nobody gave us a chance ... and it was like that throughout the year. 'Oh, they're undefeated, but they haven't played anybody.' We didn't listen to it, and this pretty much puts a stamp on the type of team we are."
Norman was asked if that 31-point demolition of the Seahawks put the questions to rest for keep. "I don't really care," he said. "At this point in time, if you don't pick us it doesn't matter. ... But I guarantee next week there is going to be a whole bunch of people switching their votes. But we are just going to come out here and keep having fun, keep dancing and enjoying ourselves and our personality."
Carolina's personality was supposed to be Newton's, and Newton's alone. That wasn't the case Sunday in the biggest game Newton's Panthers have played. Their pass-rushers shredded the Seattle line when they had to, Stewart ran for 106 yards and two touchdowns after missing three games with a foot injury, and Olsen made some critical catches.
Newton? He passed for only 161 yards and rushed for only 3 yards on 11 attempts, numbers framed by the fact he didn't even attempt a throw before his team held a 14-0 lead.
Now the Panthers host the Cardinals for a trip to the Super Bowl. Kurt Coleman called Bruce Arians "an artist" as an offensive mind, and Kuechly described the Arizona offense as video-game explosive.
"They've got wide receivers everywhere," Kuechly said. "They've got big guys, they've got guys that can run, and they have guys that have been there before. I think Larry Fitzgerald is a playoff machine."
But on this Sunday, the Panthers represented the NFL's playoff machine while reminding everyone they scored a league-high 500 points in the regular season. The Seahawks escaped the brutal conditions in Minneapolis last week, and that chip shot gone awry, but they were never going to escape Charlotte with their season intact.
That's the good news for the Panthers. The better news? Their franchise quarterback didn't have to carry them against Seattle.
Cam Newton was a passenger, not the driver, on what was one hell of a ride, and the Carolina Panthers looked a lot more like a Super Bowl team because of it.