Game #93- Carolina Panthers

Carolina Panthers vs Minnesota Vikings Bank of America Stadium September 25th, 2016 Well, this is an interesting time to come to Charlotte. I flew to the east coast to meet with a client and took the 2 hour drive down from Raleigh over the weekend to catch a Panthers game. I obviously didn’t expect the civil unrest to be taking place over the past few days in the downtown area. When officers shot and killed Keith Scott it sparked protests and riots in the community. Over the past week restaurants, shops and hotels were being vandalized, windows broken, and general panic spread throughout the city. On Saturday night protestors vowed to try to stop people from going to the game on Sunday. In my mind I thought that was an overly ambitious plan, blocking 70,000 people is a big task, but the rumors were spreading like wildfire. So when I was making my way to the stadium I decided to park a few blocks back just in case there was some sort of unrest. The streets were patrolled by extra police, the National Guard was in town, and helicopters were overhead monitoring the situation. The only group I saw protesting was about 40-50 people in a Black Lives Matter circle which was surrounded by heavily armed security officers. I guess protestors either realized the demonstration would be extremely difficult or football was more important…who knows. But for me I was selfishly glad because I came all this way to knock off my final North Carolina game and I got to see my brick at the NASCAR Hall Of Fame just down the street(states “My NASCAR is a Cervelo P3…you triathlete’s will get that one). This stadium is pretty impressive. Being in the downtown area there is a lot of character and as you walk toward the stadium archways you are met by enormous panther statues. I do find it a bit odd that a team that has only been around for 21 years also has a 12 foot statue of the team owner in front of the building, but they have made it to the Super bowl twice so that must mean something. Other than those outside statues there wasn’t anything else for the fans to appreciate. No trophy cases, no player jerseys, nothing for the fans to celebrate. The only interactive area was the giant “Keep Pounding” drum when you entered the gates, you could take a couple of whacks for a cool picture. When I pick seats I generally have a couple things in mind: how easy can I get a stub if I don’t already have one, do I need to be by the field if I am rooting for a team, and can I be closer to the aisle. At this game, I think this is the first seat that perfectly hit all of those points. I was way up top, in fact the last row butting against the wall. Normally this isn’t a good thing but it provided me shade the entire game which is important when you are in a state with 95% humidity and 85 degree weather. So when everyone else was melting, I was nice and cool. It was the only seat in the row, so I had the best aisle seat ever…no one ever stepped over me. I wasn’t rooting for either team so being in the nose bleed section was fine and the view was nice (plus the seat was cheap since it was a single ticket). And I was able to get a ticket stub from nice gentleman. It wasn’t the best one ever because it stated “replacement” but Panthers was plastered across it so that worked. I also got a seat location ticket just in case. Good times! In terms of the game, I didn’t really know what to expect from either team. Carolina on paper is the best team in the league. Minnesota on the other hand has a ton of injuries (Adrienne Peterson out for the year injuring his knee and starting QB Teddy Bridgewater didn’t even make it out of preseason) so they should be falling apart but so far were undefeated, this made for an interesting matchup. It didn’t take long for the visitors to show they were the better team this day. Superstar Cam Newton was sacked 8 times, intercepted 3, and went 21 for 35 for one of his worst performances of his career. While the Vikings Marcus Sherels returned a punt for a TD, QB Sam Bradford had zero picks, and the stifling defense completely shut down the Panthers on just about every offensive opportunity. The home crowd never got into the game and Carolina ended up losing 22-10. The highlight of the day was the halftime mascot football game where local college and professional teams were represented on the field. They really went at it hitting each other hard enough to knock the heads off each other. Also the” Keep on Pounding” guest was North Carolina State’s Ryan Held, Olympic gold medalist at the Rio games in the men’s 4x100 freestyle relay team.