HOUSTON -- As the Carolina Panthers began to fritter away another double-digit lead in the second half Sunday, folks on their couches around the Carolinas were cringing.
Another avalanche was rumbling in the hills. The Panthers had been up 17 points by Detroit and 16 on Atlanta and had lost both of those games. Those memories were painful and fresh.
Now a 21-0 Carolina lead against the playoff-bound Texans had been sliced to 21-13. The third quarter had taken about three years to play.
Nearly 14 minutes remained and the Panthers seemed like they were behind even though they actually were ahead by eight points and 80 yards from the Houston end zone.
You remember how it felt if you were watching. Somebody at your house had to have said, "Here we go again," to somebody else.
But then Carolina did something different. Something grown-up. Something right.
The Panthers clinched a game with two gorgeous fourth-quarter drives. The first went 80 yards in seven plays for a touchdown. The second ran the final 7 minutes, 25 seconds off the clock - five first downs worth of coffin nails hammered down in a hostile stadium against a team that had won seven games in a row.
This was a first in a couple of ways for the 2011 Panthers: The first win against a team that is actually very good. And the first win in which the Panthers (5-9) finished a game like a big-boy NFL team should.
"We had a lot of guys grit their teeth," quarterback Cam Newton said, "and say they're fed up and execute and make first downs and move the football ... We knew it couldn't happen again. So we just consistently kept fighting and kept fighting and had a successful drive and another one to finish the game off."
The Panthers had felt the momentum shift on the sideline, as their harvest from a near-perfect first half started to wither away.
"In the flow of a normal football game," offensive tackle Jordan Gross said, "there's going to be a stretch where maybe you're struggling on offense or defense. You've got to get through that. And that's what we haven't been able to do much this year - overcome a little lull in the action. I was going up and down the sideline telling everybody, 'Hey, we're still up eight,' or whatever it was. Because a lot of times you get that momentum change, even though you've got the lead, it doesn't feel like it. I said we've got to play like we're playing with a lead."
I thought the biggest play in the 80-yard, fourth-quarter TD drive was a 13-yard run by Newton. It didn't have the trickery of a 26-yard pass to Jeremy Shockey or the dazzle of DeAngelo Williams' 24-yard touchdown run up the middle, but it gave the Panthers their initial first down of the march. You should have heard how quiet Reliant Stadium got when Newton ran for those 13 yards.
That run broke the gate open. The Texans (10-4) - let's not forget, the NFL's No. 1-ranked defense entering the game - literally couldn't stop Carolina for the game's last 14 minutes. The Panthers had 148 yards and nine first downs on those final two drives.
"Some people may say we're not playing for anything," wide receiver Steve Smith said. "What's the point? Shut it down. But we're playing for the next three Sundays."
Get the biggest news in your email or cellphone as it's happening. Sign up for breaking news alerts.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is in Dallas today, talking up the 2012 men’s Olympic basketball team that he will coach again with hundreds of media types at the Olympic Media Summit. 
The Charlotte Bobcats haven’t been the best at anything this season. They are a collection of mismatched and mismanaged parts, blowing smoke out of an overheated engine as they wheeze toward a finish line that can’t come fast enough. 
The best bargain in Olympic sports competition will begin Thursday at the U.S. National Whitewater Center, where the U.S. Olympic Trials in canoeing and kayaking will be free to all. 
Phil Ford was a lot of things to the University of North Carolina – an iconic figure holding four fingers above his head, an assistant coach with the Tar Heels for a dozen seasons and a point guard who held the school’s career scoring record for more than 30 years. 
