A chronicle of the season · Anno 2026
“We Are Still New Here”
This house is thirty-two years old and has never won anything. Two trips to the final field, two defeats — the second, in February 2016, by a team it had beaten during the season, at the end of a year it had spent looking unbeatable.
And then last season it won the division at 8–9 and hosted a playoff game, which is the strangest possible thing to be proud of. They lost it 34–31 to the Rams. The realm treated the whole affair as an administrative error.
Bryce Young. First overall pick, written off almost immediately, and then — genuinely — better. He has already survived the part of the story where everyone decides you are a bust, which is more than most survive.
Very little. Andy Dalton left for Philadelphia. Carolina won a division, hosted a playoff game, and then had one of the quietest offseasons in the realm — a house that either believes in what it has or could not attract anyone.
That 8–9 was a beginning and not a fluke. The realm firmly expects a fluke.
Carolina's lord scored four times and it changed nothing. Chicago ran for six scores and won the highest-scoring opening day this league has ever had.
The line you say tomorrow“Bryce Young scored four times and lost by three scores, because Chicago simply ran through his house all afternoon.”