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CHARLOTTE — There are two ways to look at what's about to happen to the Carolina Panthers.

All in all, they're about where they thought they'd be right now, coming off a loss to the Falcons and heading into a tough road game in Palace Dallas.

But that would be ignoring the way this feels.

Carolina is 0-2 and headed into a desperate game against the Cowboys, a game that if the Panthers win they might look back on as one of the most important of the NFL season — maybe ever. That's assuming this isn't headed for some Seifert-ian meltdown and instead to a gutty run to respectability.

The specter of the Philly game makes the optimistic approach a hard sell. That was the must-win game, the opener, the one that would erase the bitter taste of January and the long offseason that seemed to foretell disaster. That's the feeling the Panthers are trying to shake, the feeling that something is terribly wrong and is about to get worse.

Carolina was always going to lose in Atlanta. That was a given. The young Falcons are real, and you could've predicted that outcome based on nothing more than knowledge of how the NFC South works. The Panthers (0-2) will likely lose in New Orleans, too. Carolina's hopes for a successful divisional runs likely hinge on sweeping Tampa and winning the home games against the Falcons and Saints.

But everything's different now. A loss Monday night, and the Panthers are 0-3 with a bye week and facing the task of surviving the layoff and its likely storyline. An outcry will come for heads to roll, and as ludicrous as that sounds for a team that was 12-4 last year, it will resonate.

Say what you will about them, but Carolina's players are very much a part of the fabric of life in Charlotte. They're visible and active, and they answer questions about everything. And say what you will about sports fans in Charlotte, but let's just say they must be forgiven for their sins, for they know no other way. When things are bad, they assume things are about to get worse.

And they usually do.

This is a fan base with a sports history formed by George Shinn and Curtis Turner, Rae Carruth and Fred Lane, Hornets who left town and became Bobcat Johnsons, Panthers who quit in midseason and returned years later only to get arrested for DUI.

Carolina fans firmly believe the Panthers are headed for 0-16, and until they win they will continue to think that way. The irony is, the Panthers knew this would be a tough year. The schedule alone precluded another 12-4 finish, and realists close to the situation privately figured 9-7 would be about right.

But then came the Philly game. And then came 0-2, and now comes the Cowboys on Monday night in Dallas.

In other words, 0-3.

The Panthers aren't panicking, because they've seen worse. But they haven't been 0-3 since John Fox arrived as coach. They haven't been 0-3 since 1998, and that got Dom Capers fired.

So here we go again, a second must-win game in only three weeks and not very good prospects of winning it. Dallas is coming off a home loss, and this will be a party. Carolina will be playing in front of the largest crowd in its history, and no one will be yelling for the Panthers.

Carolina's hope is to recover after the bye, when the schedule turns softer. Inside, the Panthers believe there are three wins after the bye and an outside chance of getting to 4-4 before the schedule turns brutal in the second half of the season. Publicly, they're planning to save the season in Dallas.

"They're all big," Fox said. "We can't change what's happened the last two (games). I think it will take all our focus. It's a tough opponent, but I think we're capable of the challenge."

The challenge is to survive, and nothing we've seen since last year suggests this team is capable. In any season, teams perceived to be very good become very average, and average teams become very bad. Carolina will see those teams yet, and 9-7 is not out of the question. But 0-3 is 0-3, and if the Panthers (who were 0-4 in preseason) go into the bye week with no wins, the specter of a television blackout looms for the Washington game Oct. 11, and that's the death sentence in the NFL.

Carolina is clinging to the Fox adage that no team is as good as it thinks it is, and no team is as bad. The Panthers are what they appear to be, an 0-2 team headed on the road with only a slight chance of avoiding 0-3.

And in the National Football League, 0-3 teams are forgotten for good.

If we wake up Tuesday morning, and Carolina is 1-2 with three winnable games following the bye, the Panthers will be about where they thought they'd be. If we wake up, and they're 0-3, the end will be nigh.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com