Panthers Host Rams as 10½-Point Underdogs in Wild-Card Game, Testing NFL Seeding Logic

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —

The teal towels will be back in motion Saturday afternoon, whipping through the cold air above Bank of America Stadium for the first home playoff game here in more than a decade. Cam Newton is expected to be on hand, pounding the pregame drum. Outside, bars in uptown Charlotte are packing in fans in old No. 1 jerseys and new No. 9s.

Inside, everyone knows the number that has come to define this wild-card game: 10½.

That is roughly how many points oddsmakers say separate the Carolina Panthers from the Los Angeles Rams — a spread that has made the Panthers the largest home underdog in NFL playoff history as they open the 2025–26 postseason Saturday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Fox.

The matchup pits the NFC South champion Panthers, who finished 8-9, against the 12-5 Rams, owners of the league’s top scoring offense and one of the best point differentials in football. It also highlights broader questions about how the league seeds its playoffs, how legalized sports betting now shapes the conversation around big games and where both franchises stand at quarterback.

A home playoff game with a losing record

Carolina reached the postseason with a losing record and a minus-69 point differential, winning a weak NFC South on tiebreakers after dropping its regular-season finale to Tampa Bay. The Rams, second in the NFC West, locked up the conference’s top wild-card spot behind a late surge and a prolific passing attack.

Under current NFL rules, division winners are guaranteed at least one home playoff game regardless of record. That is how a team that ranked near the bottom of the league in scoring offense will host a Rams group that averaged 30.5 points per game and led the NFL in passing yards.

Carolina joins a short list of losing-record division champions to host playoff games, following the 2010 Seattle Seahawks (7-9), the 2014 Panthers (7-8-1) and Washington in 2020 (7-9). The Panthers are the first franchise to do it twice, a distinction that has renewed calls in some corners of the league to reseed the field based on record rather than divisional standings.

For now, the format stands — and so does the betting line.

The number that defines the week

Sportsbooks across the country have installed Los Angeles as a double-digit road favorite, with most listing the Rams between 10 and 10½ points. Betting analysts say that number surpasses previous marks for home playoff underdogs, such as Washington’s +10 line against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020 and Seattle’s +10 figure against New Orleans in 2010.

“Carolina enters this game as a 10.5-point home underdog, the longest home dog of any team in NFL playoff history,” one betting trends outlet wrote this week, noting that earlier examples stopped at 10 points.

A Rams offense built to overwhelm

The Rams’ status as such a heavy favorite stems from a season in which their offense overwhelmed most opponents. Quarterback Matthew Stafford, 37, threw for 4,707 yards and 46 touchdowns against eight interceptions, both career highs and league-leading figures, and was voted a first-team All-Pro for the first time.

“There were some lean moments,” Stafford said in the days leading into the playoffs, referring to back issues that threatened his availability before the season. “It was touch and go there for a little bit. I didn’t know if I would get there… Luckily it turned out pretty good.”

Stafford has already delivered one Super Bowl title to Los Angeles, after the 2021 season. This version of the Rams features a different supporting cast: wide receiver Puka Nacua led the NFL with 129 receptions and 1,715 receiving yards, while veteran Davante Adams caught 14 touchdown passes in his first year with the team. Running back Kyren Williams surpassed 1,200 rushing yards for the third straight season, giving coach Sean McVay a balanced offense that finished seventh in rushing yards per game.

Carolina’s long road back — and Bryce Young’s chance

On the other side, Carolina’s path has been less straightforward.

The Panthers last hosted a playoff game in January 2016, when Newton, then the league’s most valuable player, led a 49-15 rout of Arizona in the NFC championship. The franchise has been through multiple coaching changes and a full front-office overhaul since owner David Tepper bought the team in 2018, including an aggressive trade up in the 2023 draft to select quarterback Bryce Young first overall.

After a rocky rookie year behind a struggling offensive line and a brief benching early in 2024, Young has stabilized under coach Dave Canales, the former Seahawks and Buccaneers assistant hired in 2024 on a six-year deal. In his third season, Young completed 63.6% of his passes for 3,011 yards, 23 touchdowns and 11 interceptions — modest numbers but a marked improvement from his debut.

Carolina still finished 27th in scoring offense at 18.3 points per game, leaning heavily on a defense built around cornerback Jaycee Horn and safety Nick Scott.

The rematch that complicates the narrative

But the Panthers can point to one game that complicates the narrative of a hopeless underdog: a 31-28 win over these same Rams in Week 13.

In that December meeting, the Panthers entered as 10-point underdogs at home and stunned Los Angeles by running for 164 yards on 40 carries and converting two deep touchdown passes on fourth down. Young went 15 of 20 for 206 yards and three scores, posting a 147.1 passer rating that ranked among the best in franchise history. Stafford threw two interceptions and lost a fumble, ending a then-record streak of 28 touchdown passes without an interception.

Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula acknowledged afterward that Carolina’s approach had caught his unit off guard, saying the Panthers’ fourth-down aggressiveness and play selection “kept us off-balance” and broke expected tendencies.

Those memories have provided fuel for a Carolina team that has heard all week how overmatched it appears on paper.

“We know we can win,” Scott, the veteran safety, said as the Panthers began preparation for the rematch. “It doesn’t matter who the opponent is. The intensity will be through the roof.”

Betting, volatility and what comes next

Oddsmakers and most statistical models still favor Los Angeles heavily, citing the Rams’ plus-172 point differential and top-five ranking in several advanced efficiency metrics. The Panthers, by contrast, finished near the bottom of the league in those categories, with a negative point margin more typical of teams picking near the top of the draft than hosting playoff games.

History offers mixed signals. In the limited sample of playoff games where home teams were underdogs of a touchdown or more, those teams have generally covered the spread and occasionally won outright, as Seattle did in the so-called “Beast Quake” game in 2010. At the same time, large road favorites tend to advance, even if they do not always win by the margins predicted.

Saturday’s game is also a showcase for how deeply sports wagering has been woven into the NFL’s fabric. North Carolina legalized online and retail sports betting in recent years, and local promotions around the Panthers’ first home playoff game since 2015 have featured as much talk of same-game parlays and prop bets as of blocking schemes and coverages.

As the opening act of this postseason, the result in Charlotte is likely to influence how the rest of the weekend is framed. A decisive Rams win would underline expectations that top offenses and efficient passing games will dominate the bracket. A tight contest — or another Panthers upset — could reinforce the idea that home-field advantage and January volatility still matter, even in an era increasingly driven by analytics and betting markets.

By kickoff, the towels will be waving again, and the number 10½ will matter a little less than the one on the scoreboard. For Stafford and the Rams, the game marks the beginning of a quest for a second title in five years. For Young and the Panthers, it is an opportunity to redefine how they are viewed — not as an outmatched host in a flawed seeding system, but as a team capable of disrupting expectations in the first game that counts the most.