Panthers advance to Super Bowl showdown with Patriots

THE surprising Carolina Panthers continued one of the most remarkable turn-arounds in NFL history on Sunday, advancing to their first Super Bowl and a showdown with the New England Patriots.

While the Patriots, who are headed to the championship for the second time in three years, were rated Super Bowl contenders right from opening day, Carolina snuck up on their first title game. League laughing stocks just two years ago after stumbling through a 1-15 season, the Panthers will now have an opportunity to complete their transformation from chumps to champs after defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 14-3 in the NFC championship game.

The Patriots, riding a 14-game unbeaten streak, who will roll into Houston for Super Bowl XXXVIII as the prohibitive favourites following a 24-14 dissection of the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC title game.

Two seasons ago, while the Panthers were still digesting a campaign that produced but a single win, the Patriots were celebrating a Super Bowl victory and toasting their new star quarterback Tom Brady, who is now unbeaten in five postseason games.

On February 1, Brady returns to the stage that shot him to fame but Panthers’ unheralded quarterback Jake Delhomme will also have the chance to step into the spotlight and add a Super Bowl ring to the World Bowl title he won in 1999 when leading the Frankfurt Galaxy to the NFL Europe championship. The two teams bear little resemblance except that the road to Houston for both the Panthers and Patriots has been cleared by opportunistic defences which turned in dominating efforts in their respective conference championships.

Rookie cornerback Rickey Manning Jr. equalled a championship record intercepting McNabb three times in 10 minutes.

At a snowy and soggy Gillette Stadium, New England defensive back Ty Law stole the show, picking off three of Peyton Manning’s passes. “This is probably the most simple game plan that we had, just go out there and stick them and beat them up at the line of scrimmage,” said Law. “If you watch those guys put up those big numbers, you see a lot of guys run through the secondary and we were not going to let them do that to us.”

The last NFL team to win so many consecutive games in a season was the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only team with an unbeaten title run.