The 1995 season was full of firsts for the Panthers, from their offseason home at Winthrop University in Rock Hill to their home games at Clemson. But there was a palpable energy throughout the city as they prepared for their first season, and then exceeded every expectation, becoming the most successful expansion team ever. After losing their first five games, they rallied to finish 7-9, setting the stage for their 12-4 debut season in Bank of America Stadium in 1996 and a trip to the NFC Championship Game.
But it all started in Canton, where they put on pads and faced another team for the first time, and the fact that it was against another expansion team turned it into a measuring stick.
"Yeah, compared to other preseason games, that definitely, there was a lot at stake," Christian said. "We felt like it was unrealistic to say, hey, we want to win the Super Bowl in the first year, but we definitely, I think both teams for the first two years, we definitely had a competitive eye on Jacksonville. And we wanted to outdo them as the other expansion team. That was a must; that was the only must-win thing of the season. I think that we've all felt it. It wasn't outwardly-imposed, it was inwardly-imposed, that, that we had to, we had to finish ahead of Jacksonville, you know, we had to outdo them as, you know, we, we wanted to be the best of the franchise of the expansion teams, you know, and, and so that, that first game was a lot at stake cause we're playing them, so you know, it meant more than a typical first preseason game to all the guys on the team."
That might seem quaint now, but things were different in 1995. For one thing, Christian was a guy who came in the expansion draft, which meant his previous team left him unprotected. The Panthers had a lot of strays in those first years, but that included too-short linebackers like Sam Mills (a guy who was teaching wood shop in a New Jersey high school when he took his last chance to try out for the USFL, which eventually led him to the Hall of Fame.) But they were thrown together in a hurry, and that immediacy of every action just added importance to things that can seem mundane.
That kind of wide-eyed and pure enjoyment was typical in that first season. Christian had been around a bit, but there was still that moment before the game, when he was standing for the coin toss with Frank Reich and Mills, that he looked around and realized this was different, and this was new.