Rams write up in Chicago fish wrap

Found this while looking for a third souce for the brain

Mike Downey
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In the wake of the News Carolina creates own memories

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* *January 11, 2004
ST. LOUIS -- You won't find very many "Great Carolina Panthers Games in History" videos.

This is not America's team. It isn't much of anybody's team, if you wander too far from downtown Charlotte.
Ask a friend to name the most famous Panther in history and the answer you'll probably get is either "Huey Newton" or "that Pink one."

Of the eight NFL franchises in playoff action this weekend, Carolina's is the only one that never has been in a Super Bowl.

But the Panthers played a game Saturday that was a lot more memorable than many a Super Bowl has been.

Their 29-23, double-overtime fight for survival against the St. Louis Rams was one for the scrapbooks—if there is such a thing as a Panthers scrapbook—from beginning to end.

Sports fans from the Carolinas will talk about it for years. It will go down with Tar Heels and Blue Devils basketball games won at the buzzer and 500-mile auto races with cars side by side at the checkered flag.

It might not even hurt that much if the Panthers don't win a trip to the Super Bowl at next week's NFC title game.

Because for some, they'll always have St. Louis.

It was a game the Panthers had to play in an indoor stadium with deafening noise, a place where the Rams had won 14 games in a row.

It was a game the Panthers had to play without their leading rusher, Stephen Davis, for the entire second half and overtime because he had been hurt on a 64-yard run.

It was a game they won, then lost, then won, then lost, then finally won on Steve Smith's 69-yard touchdown catch.

"We just kept believing," said a happy but pooped Julius Peppers, the Panthers' outstanding defensive end.

"I've never seen a game quite like that. There were as big of peaks and lows as you can have in a football game," said coach John Fox, too exhausted to form a sentence correctly.

Every time you were positive that his cats had this game in the bag, it got away.

Even the enemy quarterback, Marc Bulger, said of the Panthers: "They were trying to give us the game there at the end."

Disbelieving eyes saw the Rams' kicker outleap the Panthers to recover his own onside kick. Saw him tie the score with a field goal on the last play of regulation.

Jaws dropped when Carolina's kicker won the game in overtime with a field goal, only to have it not count because of a delay-of-game penalty.

Yet somehow, the Panthers still pulled out a victory.

"This is going to be a tough one to swallow," Rams kicker Jeff Wilkins said, his heroic five field goals and kick recovery rendered meaningless.

The roaring fans inside the Edward Jones Dome were booing Bulger, his teammates and everybody but Edward Jones himself for most of the fourth quarter. With 2:45 left, the Rams were behind 11 points and didn't have a touchdown.

But bang, bang, bang came a touchdown run by Marshall Faulk, a two-point conversion pass and that miraculous onside kick, the 6-foot-2-inch Wilkins beating larger men to the ball like Dennis Rodman going for an offensive rebound.

"I was like 'Holy cow!'" Wilkins said. "It was just a natural reaction to jump up for it. It fell into my hands. Then I was at the bottom of the pile, trying to hold on for dear life."

He held on, then booted a 33-yard game-tying field goal as time expired.

But in overtime Wilkins ran out of miracles. His 5-for-5 perfection came to an end with a 53-yard field goal falling just short.

The game itself came ended on Jake Delhomme's 69-yard pass to Smith on the first play of the second overtime period.

A crazy, crazy game.

"I don't think 'crazy' is the term I'd use," losing coach Mike Martz said. "Maybe 'disappointment.' I don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling about it right now."

There are people in Carolina who do. And will, for a long, long time.

 

Has anyone noticed

a recent wave of re-posts?

http://www.thisboardrocks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=53502

 

at least no one replied to your either