Last Thursday Night's blowout loss for the Carolina Panthers can be described with many adjectives: Embarrassing, humiliating, downright demoralizing. But for a team that had been feeling good about itself at 6-2 prior to their trip to face the Pittsburgh Steelers, it was ultimately described as "humbling". Veteran linebacker Thomas Davis recognized it as such in the immediate aftermath, and made sure to make a point of thanking the Steelers for bringing them back down to Earth.

As Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin had been mic'd up for his team's 52-21 beatdown of the Panthers, Showtime's Inside the NFL captured the moment that Davis came over to Tomlin after the game ended with a short message: "Way to humble us. We needed that."

Some interesting moments on “Inside the NFL” last night. Mike Tomlin raves about Thomas Davis; Davis tells Tomlin after final whistle “we needed” to be humbled. pic.twitter.com/f3G6QKGwR0 — Bill Voth (@PanthersBill) November 14, 2018

Given the amount of respect that Tomlin had been showing to Davis throughout the entire game, it was a message that was well-received by the Steelers' head coach of the past decade.

"Hey, y'all see Thomas Davis come over here and whack that guy?", said Tomlin to his staff at one point during the game. "That's 15 years! That's some runnin' and hittin'! I respect the Hell out of that!"

For the Panthers, the word "humble" was tossed around a great deal following the loss. Cam Newton stated post-game that their outing was a "humbling piece of pie". Davis himself used the same sort of phrase in a post-game report by Max Henson of the Panthers. Greg Olsen stated that the loss was an illustration of how fast playing in the NFL can humble a team.

Although head coach Ron Rivera has been stressing to his team that Week 10 is over and that they are moving on, he nevertheless discussed how a humbling experience like the one the Panthers had in Pittsburgh can help them as they look towards the rest of the second half of the year.

"I think it creates a little bit more realism. 'Hey, maybe we aren't as good as we think we are. Maybe we need to work a little bit more. Maybe we took a little bit for granted,'" said Rivera. 'Those are all things that humbling experiences create for athletes, or at least for people. One of my favorite says is that you've got to study history, learn from history, because if you don't you're doomed to repeat it.

"So hopefully, we learned from this and we understand what it's gonna take each day, each week in terms of preparation and getting ready to play."

The lessons the Panthers have learned will be put to the test over the next month, as they face a four-game stretch of games that they should be able to win - And absolutely have to if they want to put themselves in the best position possible to knock the New Orleans Saints off the top of the NFC South.