Panthers and Broncos must look toward the future, and it starts this week

When the Panthers and Broncos faced off in the very first game of the 2016 season, expectations were high for both. Now, both teams have been eliminated from playoff contention, and Carolina and Denver must look toward turning things around for next year.

When these two teams met in Super Bowl 50, the Broncos walked away with the Lombardi Trophy after beating Carolina 24-10. The Panthers came out on the losing end, but still had a 15-1 regular season and quarterback Cam Newton being named league MVP to hang their hats on.

After the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning retired. The Broncos also lost some key defensive players, namely linebacker Danny Trevathan and defensive end Malik Jackson, in free agency.

The Panthers chose to rescind the franchise tag they had applied to cornerback Josh Norman, who had been a cornerstone of the team’s defensive success in 2015.

Despite those changes, that first game of the 2016 season was a much more competitive affair, which Denver won 21-20. It was the game we all wished the Super Bowl had been, and it sustained the hope that both teams would be functioning at close to their 2015 levels.

It wouldn’t last, for either team. Now, heading into the final week of the 2016 season, the Panthers and Broncos are both looking toward 2017.

First, though, Carolina wants to finish this season strong. They got some momentum late in the season, and seemed to be putting it all together.

The Panthers went 1-5 over their first six games, but they were outscored just 176-161 over that time. They lost several close games, with an outlier being a 48-33 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, a team that ended up having the top-scoring offense in the NFL.

Carolina went 5-4 over the next nine games, including convincing wins over the Arizona Cardinals, San Diego Chargers and Washington. It suggests that the team can turn things around for 2017.

After the loss to the Falcons in Week 16, head coach Ron Rivera said the team is looking toward the future, but they’re not going to sleepwalk through Week 17. Next week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will help set the tone for next season.

”We are going to go out and play. That’s what I told the guys in the locker room,” Rivera said. “I said, ‘Guys, we have one left to play. I expect us to play hard because my attitude is that we are playing to win. I’m not looking for anything other than that.’

“We are playing for 2017, but at the same time, we still have a game to play. Can you set a tone and tempo? Yes, you can most certainly can and we have to go out and do our jobs.”

Cam Newton hasn’t played at the MVP level that carried his team through so many wins in 2015. This year, Newton had six games in which he passed for 200 yards or fewer, and he completed a career-low 52.7 percent of his passes in 2016.

Rivera said that as Cam gets older, the Panthers will have to change their offensive approach to suit him.

This season, Newton took too many hits, including several unpenalized blows to the head. The Week 1 game against the Broncos brought about controversy, with Newton taking multiple hits that should have been flagged, but weren’t.

He missed Week 5 with a concussion after a hit from Falcons linebacker Deion Jones in Week 4 forced him out of the game and into the protocol, and in Week 12 against the Raiders Newton finally got his first roughing the passer call — since 2014.

As Newton gets older, the offense will need to keep him healthy, and rely less on his ability to make plays with his legs. The team can’t afford for Newton to take those hits and risk injury. A healthy Newton always gives the Panthers a better shot to win.

The young secondary, a liability early in the season, made progress over the course of 2016, too. Rivera sees the potential.

”I thought the young guys all played well (against Atlanta). James (Bradberry) had a good day with the exception of that (55-yard Tevin Coleman touchdown run),” Rivera said. “I thought Daryl Worley did some nice things. You saw Tre Boston out there battling, doing the best he can.”

Rivera said he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself thinking toward 2017. The pieces are in place, however, for the Panthers to be competitive again next season.

Denver’s season began on a very different trajectory from the Panthers. Starting with that Week 1 win over Carolina, the Broncos jumped out to a 4-0 start. Consecutive losses to the Falcons and Chargers were followed up by two straight wins over the Texans and Chargers, and the Broncos went into their Week 11 bye with a respectable 7-3 record.

Since the bye, the Broncos are 1-4. Denver’s defense has been pretty consistent, and last season the offense just needed to do enough for the defense to lock up wins. This season, with Trevor Siemian and Paxton Lynch behind center, the offense hasn’t been able to get it done.

Head coach Gary Kubiak said the biggest difference from last season is that the Broncos cannot get or sustain leads.

“The thing we did last year, we were able to get leads in games. People had to play differently against us. They had to throw the ball,” Kubiak said. “You go back to the playoffs, we scored first in all three of those playoff games, in the first possession. We haven’t gotten anybody in that position here in the last month. I think that’s been a big difference.”

Like Rivera and the Panthers, Kubiak said after Sunday’s loss to the Chiefs that he sees Denver’s Week 17 matchup against the Raiders — missing starting quarterback Derek Carr — as a step toward the future.

“What I said after the game was that I told the players, I wanted them on the plane ride home to clear their head and next week — we look at next week as moving on in the future,” Kubiak said. “We can’t do anything about this season.”

It was a tougher road for the Broncos this season, because they share the AFC West with the 12-3 Oakland Raiders and the 11-4 Kansas City Chiefs. The division may be as competitive next season, though, so Denver has to correct the issues on offense.

Siemian and Lynch got valuable game experience this season, and the offense has talent to work with in Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders. The question for the Broncos is whether Siemian or Lynch is truly prepared to be an NFL quarterback.

In two starts, Lynch completed 59 percent of his passes for 497 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Siemian completed 59.3 percent of his passes this season for 3,195 yards, 16 touchdowns and nine picks over 13 starts.

His last start, in Denver’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs that knocked them out of playoff contention, didn’t inspire confidence in Siemien. He completed 17 of 43 passes for 183 yards, no touchdowns and one interception.

The offensive line in Denver didn’t make things easier on the young quarterbacks this season. The Broncos have allowed 40 sacks, which places them at No. 27 in the NFL, and 97 quarterback hits this season. They’ve also hurt the offense with penalties. The Broncos, as a whole, have 114 penalties on the season, and that’s the sixth-most in the league.

Denver’s offensive line played so poorly that there was a conflict between the defense and offensive line — specifically cornerback Aqib Talib and tackle Russell Okung — following the team’s 16-3 loss to the New England Patriots.

The Broncos were decimated by injury at the running back position in 2016. Both C.J. Anderson and Kapri Bibbs landed on injured reserve, and in their stead, Devontae Booker had 555 rushing yards and three touchdowns, along with 213 receiving yards in just six starts.

Anderson tore his meniscus, and and his recovery was ahead of schedule to the point that he might have returned for the postseason had Denver earned a spot. He should be a full go for the 2017 season, as should Bibbs, who was dealing with an ankle injury and should be fine for next year.

The defense still has plenty of playmakers and can continue to be dominant, and if the necessary improvements come on offense, the Broncos can bounce back next season.

It’s not been an easy road this season for last year’s AFC and NFC Champions. This is the first time either team has missed the playoffs since 2013, and being left out of the postseason entirely just one season after appearing in the Super Bowl is a tough pill to swallow for both the Broncos and the Panthers.

But both teams can build toward a better 2017. For the Panthers, the hope lies in the improvement over the last few games of the season as well as the development of its young secondary. For Denver, the game experience gained by both Siemian and Lynch should put the team in a more stable position offensively next season.

And for both teams, the focus on the future starts with finishing off the 2016 season with wins in Week 17.