Newton leads Panthers past Seahawks, into NFC title game

For the Carolina Panthers, what a time to be alive. The play introduced Carolina’s excellent performance, as they rolled to a 31-0 lead at halftime en route to a 31-24 victory on Sunday at Bank of America Stadium.

Stewart missed the last three regular-season games with a sprained foot, and got to ease back into playing during the Panthers’ bye during last week’s wild card round. Victor books a ticket to the Super Bowl. “Now comes the next one, Arizona”.

Newton threw for a touchdown and Stewart ran for two scores as the Panthers raced to a 31-0 lead at the half.

Carolina is in the NFC title game for the first time since 2005.

“You can’t draw it up like that”, Panthers quarterback Cam Newton said.

Ultimately Seattle couldn’t recover, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. Russell Wilson threw two of his three touchdown passes to Jermaine Kearse before Steven Hauschka’s 36-yard field goal got Seattle within a touchdown with 1:12 remaining.

DAVIS DOES IT AGAIN: Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis — the team’s longest tenured player — came up with an onside kick to seal Carolina’s win. When we finally did, we caught fire, and got rolling.

The Panthers had a plan for that, and Stewart produced with a 59-yard run on the first play from scrimmage. Seattle hadn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher since November 13, 2014, a span of 27 games. They moved the ball inside the Seahawks’ 20 three times and converted all three drives into touchdowns.

The Seahawks would escape the first half without further damage but the stats sheet revealed the Panthers’ utter domination: 220 yards in total offence to 123; 118 rushing yards to 30; two interceptions for the Panthers and another turnover on downs; 5-for-7 in third-down conversions for the Panthers.

The Panthers will be the home team next Sunday night for the clash with the Arizona Cardinals.

“What a great feeling for our team to host playoff games back-to-back years, and now the Super Bowl goes through us”.

– Olsen’s touchdown catch – and the pass from Newton that produced it – were both things of beauty. They used two timeouts in barely more than 18 minutes of the second half.

– The Panthers tied their franchise record for points in the first half at 31.

That the game even came down to such a late pivotal moment was surprising given Carolina’s dominance in the first half, taking a 31-0 lead into the break. It seemed insignificant at the time, but how big was it in retrospect.

On the Seahawks’ first drive, defensive tackle Kawann Short got pressure up the middle.

– There were 74,287 tickets distributed for the game.

The hangover from Russell Wilson’s cataclysmic interception at the end of the Super Bowl last season looks very real for Seattle, but you wouldn’t have had much luck convincing the Seahawks of that Sunday. I think you can use it for positive growth for the next opportunity, the next experience….

“For whatever reason, we got into protect mode”.

“We talked all week about starting the game with an attitude, going right at them, and it couldn’t have started any better”, said fullback Mike Tolbert, who helped spring Stewart with a block of linebacker K.J. Wright. “It is one of those things that we most certainly as coaches have to make sure we are putting them in the right positon to do those things”.