What the Carolina Panthers have done in 2018 is hardly unprecedented. In going from 6-2 and in contention for the No. 1 seed in the NFC to 6-7 and looking like they won't be playing football in January, the Panthers are on the verge of joining some dishonorable company in terms of teams that started their year off hot only to miss the playoffs entirely.

But given their current trend and the fact that the Panthers only have three games left in the regular season, they may very well be on their way to falling apart in a way that no NFL team has ever managed to do - ever.

As noted earlier today on WFNZ by Joe Person of The Athletic, no team in NFL history has ever started their season 6-2 only to lose out and finish 6-10. In fact, of all NFL teams to have ever gotten off to a 6-2 start, only four have missed the playoffs entirely.

Per @josephperson on-air just now, no team in @NFL that has started 6-2 has ever finished the regular season 6-10. Only 4 of those teams even missed the postseason.



This is an epic, historic collapse.#KeepPounding — Kyle Bailey (@KyleBaileyWFNZ) December 10, 2018

Those four teams include the 1978 Washington Redskins, the 1994 Philadelphia Eagles, the 1999 New England Patriots, and the 2003 Minnesota Vikings.

In comparing the circumstances of the 2018 Panthers to those four teams, the current predicament the Panthers face is most analogous to the circumstances of the '99 Patriots. Under the direction of head coach Pete Carroll, the Patriots got off to a nice start to the year, beginning 4-0 before being 6-2 by the time their Week Nine Bye came along. But following the Bye, everything changed: The Patriots proceeded to lose six of their next seven games, with only a Week 13 victory over the Dallas Cowboys keeping their heads above the water by the time Week 17 came along. The Patriots would win their season finale against the Baltimore Ravens to improve to 8-8, but it was too late to save their season.

The Patriots fired Carroll following the collapse, and only retained Vice President of Player Personnel Bobby Grier until the 2000 NFL Draft before dismissing him as well (Oddly enough, that would be the draft where the Patriots selected Tom Brady in the sixth round out of Michigan).

As a sense of helplessness grows around the Panthers, it almost seems as though the laws of entropy have caught up with the team: The Panthers are a single loss away from being able to finish no better than 8-8, which would continue their trend of never having back-to-back winning seasons since entering the NFL in 1995.

With three games left, there is still time left for the Panthers to correct things and make it to the playoffs. And there's also time for the Panthers to run the table and put together a winning season. But time is running out for the 2018 Panthers to keep themselves from becoming one of the NFL's most dubious teams ever.