After a fall from grace, a humbled team looks to new coach George Seifert to show it how to win again -- and lay the foundation for a perennial contender

Gilbert, the Panthers' most heralded pickup and expensive flop in '98, must get in gear for the defense to get on track.  Allen Kee/BRSP

Micheal Barrow remembers feeling almost embarrassed about his good fortune. The lucky linebacker had left the Oilers in February 1997 to sign a five-year, $19 million free-agent deal with the Panthers, a team whose promise appeared to have no boundaries. In only its second season, Carolina, on the strength of an aggressive, dynamic defense, had reached the NFC Championship Game. Dom Capers was the 1996 coach of the year, quarterback Kerry Collins was talking dynasty and the acquisition of Barrow, a star-in-the-making, seemed like a luxury, the equivalent of adding Bridget Fonda to the cast of Friends. "I was thinking, Man, we're going to the Super Bowl, and that's just the start of it," Barrow recalls. "I thought it was on -- then, bam, it was gone."

Two-and-a-half years later Barrow has a clearer understanding of what it means to be embarrassed. The Panthers didn't even make the playoffs in his first season with them, and a year later they plummeted to the depths of the NFL en route to a 4-12 record. After a series of missteps on and off the field, Collins was released last October; Capers was fired after the season; and now Barrow is being asked to anchor a front-seven regarded as among the league's weakest.

Yet as Carolina heads into its fifth season, hope runs rampant because the new man in charge, George Seifert, is among the shrewdest defensive strategists of his era, not to mention an expert on zoology and, above all, winning. After being hired as the Panthers' coach last January, Seifert, owner of the best winning percentage in NFL history (.766 in eight seasons with the 49ers), quickly scrapped Capers's 3-4, zone-blitz-happy scheme and took aim at the attitude problems that plagued Carolina in '98. The Panthers' internal frustration came to a head last December when linebacker Kevin Greene angrily shoved his position coach, Kevin Steele, on the sideline during a game.

"That was the worst of it, but it was just part of the mess," says cornerback Eric Davis, a former Niners All-Pro whom Seifert drafted and developed. "Guys just lost their faith in the system, and a lot of people thought they had the answers. Well, we know George has answers, because he has won two Super Bowls. Having him here stops a lot of the negativity."

Seifert won 98 of 128 games as San Francisco's coach, but he was just 1-3 against Carolina, whose 30-24 victory at 3Com Park late in the '96 season marked the low point of his tenure. The Niners were flagged for a team-record-tying 14 penalties -- not to mention fullback William Floyd's spitting toward the Panthers' bench before the game -- and it contributed to 49ers president Carmen Policy's decision to force out Seifert following that season.

Now, in meetings and at practice, Seifert tries to set the lofty standards in Carolina that he helped establish and preserve in San Francisco. During one of the club's first training camp practices, Seifert, who has a bachelor's degree in zoology, pulled out an old standby speech: the story of the wildebeest, which, when cornered by a lion, succumbs with an air of resignation. "I don't want to see you get that glassy, glazed-over look in your eyes when things get tough," Seifert lectured. "Don't be that wildebeest."

The Panthers didn't totally submit last season. Carolina lost an NFL-record-tying nine games by a touchdown or less and, after Greene's suspension, rallied to win on the season's final two weekends. "There's an inner strength lurking in there somewhere," Seifert says. "Yet we're light-years from where we need to be."

On paper the injury-plagued Panthers are paper-thin. Hamstrung by the big money they spent in the '98 off-season to acquire defensive lineman Sean Gilbert (seven years, $46.5 million plus two first-round draft picks) and cornerback Doug Evans (five years, $22.5 million), the Panthers lacked the cap room to go after big-name free agents this spring, though they did acquire a quarterback for the future in former Broncos backup Jeff Lewis.

Seifert hired away one of his longtime assistants, former Niners defensive coordinator John Marshall, to install a 4-3 defense that is a scaled-down version of the scheme Seifert helped develop. Barrow, who will shift to the linebacker spot at which Ken Norton makes so many tackles in San Francisco, is conceding nothing. "George said, 'I've never gone into a game not expecting to win,' and that's how I feel about this season," Barrow says. "I know it's hard to believe -- maybe even for a lot of people here -- but I think we can turn it around.

-- Michael Silver

Fast Facts

1998 RECORD: 4-12 (4th in NFC West)
     NFL rank (rush/pass/total): offense 28/14/20; defense 26/28/30

1999 SCHEDULE STRENGTH (rank): 21
     Opponents' 1998 winning percentage: .492; Games against playoff teams: 6

Player to Watch

He showed up for training camp with a skateboard slung over one shoulder and a chip on the other. After experiencing an extreme degree of frustration during an injury-ravaged 1998 season, wideout Rae Carruth plans to get rad in '99. "I don't think people even know who I am anymore," says Carruth, a '97 first-round pick who led all rookies with 44 catches and 545 receiving yards that year. "I'm sick of watching others succeed. This is my time." Carruth broke his right foot while making a 47-yard catch in last season's opener against the Falcons, and Rocket Ismail, who replaced him in the lineup, went on to catch 69 passes for 1,024 yards. Restless from the prolonged inactivity, Carruth took up skateboarding this spring. Ismail, a free agent in the off-season, signed a seven-year, $21.5 million deal with Dallas, setting the stage for Carruth's reemergence as a marquee deep threat.

Other Info

1999 Team Schedule
Team Depth Chart