Panthers stagger in to face Bears team they helped build, from general manager down to punter

There are many reasons the Panthers are nosediving toward their seventh consecutive losing season — rash and meddlesome owner David Tepper tops the list — but the dilapidated condition in which they’ll stagger into Soldier Field on Sunday is deeply intertwined with the Bears’ rebuild.

Specifically, two of the errors that led them to their latest hopeless juncture were passing on Bears general manager Ryan Poles when he was a candidate for that job in Carolina in 2021 and getting decisively out-negotiated by him two years later.