CHARLOTTE — As happy as so many of my friends and neighbors are that the Panthers are sitting here with a winning record as we approach Halloween, there's also a bit of astonishment at how it's happening.

And that's OK too, because the surprises in life are what make it special (and that's not in reference to your yard decorations, which are probably overwrought and certainly too early).

"The Carolina Panthers are seventh in the league in total defense and eighth against the run" is not a sentence I anticipated typing in Week 8 of the Year of our Lord 2025. But here we are.

And in the middle of all that is Derrick Brown , of course, because he's filling up a stat sheet in a way that only he can. He's rejecting passes (three Sunday) at a Dikembe Mutombo rate, and throwing offensive lin

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