The Carolina Panthers forgot the “victory” part of the victory formation during this weekend’s game.
Carolina faced off on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. They would end up losing in front of their home crowd by a final score of 27-10 and did something rather bizarre in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.
After emerging from the two-minute warning with a 2nd-and-7 play from deep in their own territory, the Panthers bizarrely decided to go into the victory formation. They chose to simply run out the clock with three consecutive kneeldowns by quarterback Bryce Young and gave the ball back to the Seahawks after the turnover on downs.
Seattle then had to run a kneeldown of their own with 34 seconds left to officially close out the game. Here is a screenshot of the Panthers going into the victory formation … while losing by 17 points.
The Panthers in the victory formation. pic.twitter.com/moP7IS9pTG
— John Stanton's Red Headed Stepchild (@bigwormjerm) December 28, 2025
Jon Bois of SB Nation pointed out that it was just the third time since 1978 that an NFL team had knelt in the fourth quarter on a fourth-down play while losing.
The thought from the Panthers’ perspective was obviously to avoid the risk of injury in a game that was already decided. But even so, teams in those circumstances will usually continue to play until the final whistle, and if anything will just pull their starters in favor of the second-stringers to mitigate that injury risk.
Fortunately for Carolina, the NFC South rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers also lost on Sunday to the Miami Dolphins, meaning that the division title will all come down to the Carolina-Tampa Bay showdown in Week 18. But that was still an extremely strange way for the Panthers to end their final regular season home game of the 2025 campaign. Perhaps it was on-brand for Carolina though given that they have managed to make headlines multiple times this season now for unflattering on-field spectacles.
