CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Could the Carolina Panthers sweep the two biggest individual awards in the NFL this season?

Only three times in league history have the NFL's Most Valuable Player and Defensive Player of the Year awards gone to the same team.

Only once have teammates won the awards in the same season: San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young was the league MVP and cornerback Deion Sanders was the Defensive Player of the Year in 1994.

The other two times one team swept the awards, they went to the same player: defensive tackle Alan Page with the 1971 Minnesota Vikings and linebacker Lawrence Taylor with the 1986 New York Giants.

The Panthers (12-0) have a chance to join that elite company with quarterback Cam Newton and middle linebacker Luke Kuechly.

Here's an argument for why this could happen:

Cam Newton

What Newton has done this season statistically is comparable to what Young did in '94. The biggest difference is completion percentage. Young completed 70.3 percent of his passes that season. Newton is at 58.4 percent. Newton already has a career-high 25 touchdown passes with four regular-season games remaining; Young had 35 in '94. Newton has seven rushing touchdowns in 12 games; Young had seven in 16. Newton has rushed for 476 yards; Young had 293. Young led the 49ers to a 13-3 record and ultimately a victory in the Super Bowl. Newton has won 14 straight regular-season games and is 12-0 this season.

Newton's biggest competition for the award is New England's Tom Brady and Arizona's Carson Palmer. Both have a higher passer rating than Newton (93.2), but Newton ranks second in the NFL in fourth-quarter passer rating at 115.0, with six touchdowns and one interception. Newton has been particularly hot of late, being named the NFC's Offensive Player of the Week three times in the past five games. The MVP award appears to be his to lose.

His coach says Luke Kuechly is having a better season than he did when he was Defensive Player of the Year in 2013. Grant Halverson/Getty Images

Luke Kuechly

Carolina coach Ron Rivera says Kuechly is playing better now than he did in 2013, when Kuechly was named Defensive Player of the Year. Because Kuechly has that on his résumé, he has name recognition and reputation to back up the stats for another. That he's tied for the team lead in tackles with 81 (the Panthers list him with a team-high 98 after film review) on the league's third-ranked defense despite missing 3½ games with a concussion is amazing.

What Kuechly is significantly better at now than he was in 2013 is coverage. According to Pro Football Focus research, Kuechly is allowing a passer rating of 44.1 when targeted. The inside linebacker average is 103.0. Kuechly already has three interceptions, one shy of his career high. One of those was returned for a touchdown at Dallas on Thanksgiving Day, when he had two picks in a nationally televised game. Those kind of games stand out to the voters.

Kuechly already has a career-high two forced fumbles. If he had a lot of sacks (he has one), he'd be a lock for the award. But Kuechly won it in 2013 when he had just two sacks, because people recognize that's not what he's asked to do in this system. He's much like Page in '71: the best player on a great defense. That the Panthers are undefeated heightens Kuechly's visibility.

Kuechly's top competition likely will come from Houston defensive end J.J. Watt and Carolina cornerback Josh Norman. Watt has 13.5 sacks but only 59 tackles in three more full games than Kuechly. Watt is on a 6-6 team. Norman has been one of the best, if not the best, cover corners in the league. He has four interceptions, two returned for touchdowns. But all of those came in the first four games. Kuechly has received the most recent attention, so he's fresher in the voters' minds. But if Norman were to win the award, the Panthers still would have a sweep.