The Carolina Panthers took a step back in 2016. Will they rebound in 2017 or will the Detroit Lions have easy pickings in week five?

The Panthers are a perfect example of what happens to a team that doesn’t improve in any given offseason. After a spectacular season, in which a transcendent performance by their quarterback masked the fundamental problems with the team’s roster, the Panthers fell to earth when those flaws were exposed by the Broncos. The championship was never in doubt for the Broncos, and the Panthers went from being a team that was one win from perfect in the regular season, to a team that clearly didn’t belong on the same field.

Cam Newton did not live up to his billing as a Superman clone in 2016, and the team suffered. No longer were they able to overcome obvious deficiencies in their offensive tackle group, a lack of wide receiver quality, and an aging backfield. The defense also lost Josh Norman, voluntarily no less, and made no major additions to counter that loss.

The Panthers largely stood still in the 2016 offseason and showed the league exactly why the saying “If you didn’t get better, you got worse” is so applicable in football. Within their Division the Falcons rose from their mediocre 8-8 2015 record to the number two seed in the NFC and took a Superbowl trip. The Buccaneers also took major strides, narrowly missing the playoffs in a tiebreaker with the Lions.

So have the Panthers learned their lesson? Did they take the strides they desperately needed to in the 2017 offseason? They have added to their offensive and defensive units for the upcoming year, but it’s hard to divine how their season will go. The question that matters here though is how they match up with the Lions for week six.