Cam Newton might have won an MVP award as Panthers stay perfect

The Carolina Panthers are four wins away from history, and just seven wins away from the only 19-0 season in NFL history.

And Cam Newton might have won his first MVP award on Sunday.

Sunday’s win over the New Orleans Saints said a lot about this Panthers team and their quarterback. The Panthers didn’t play a great game. They gave up a defensive touchdown on a fumble. Carolina's defense gave up a lot of big plays. The Panthers trailed the New Orleans Saints 14-0 after the first quarter. The Saints led 31-27 early in the fourth quarter. Then the Saints took another 38-34 lead in the final minutes. And still the Panthers avoided perhaps the biggest land mine in their 12-0 start, winning 41-38 on a touchdown with a little more than a minute to go.

Newton made a number of incredible passes including a great fourth-down play that Greg Olsen hauled in inches before it hit the ground on Carolina’s game-winning drive. Newton's touchdown pass to Jerricho Cotchery with 1:05 left gave the Panthers a 41-38 lead. Newton and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady had been jostling for first place in the MVP race, but Newton probably passed him on Sunday. He had 331 passing yards, 49 rushing yards and five passing touchdowns. He was amazing, continuously coming up with big plays when Carolina needed them most.

It’s incredibly hard to get this deep into a season without a loss. All NFL teams are capable of winning any game, as the 4-8 Saints showed. They were very close to knocking off Carolina. Every great team in the Super Bowl era of the NFL, aside from the 1972 Miami Dolphins, has slipped up at least once. Yet the Panthers, dating back to last season, have won 16 regular-season games in a row. Their last regular-season loss was Nov. 30 last year.

The streak between two seasons is great, but it won’t be remembered forever like 16-0 would. Only the 2007 New England Patriots have done that. And now the Panthers are three-fourths of the way there. They play against the Atlanta Falcons next week, then have road games at the New York Giants and Atlanta before finishing out the season at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It will still be difficult to win four games in a row, no matter how winnable all four of those games look. But after the Panthers got through Sunday’s incredible win, coming back a few times with their superstar quarterback, history isn’t that far off anymore.