In the third quarter of the Panthers’ 42–13 loss to the Patriots in Week 4, lifelong Carolina fan Jerry Dempster did something he hadn't done in years.

He turned the game off.

Instead of sticking around to watch backup quarterback Andy Dalton throw a meaningless touchdown pass to tight end Mitchell Evans in garbage time, Dempster went on a walk with his daughter and his dogs. When he returned home, Dempster, speaking with Sports Illustrated in an interview, said he texted his friend Stephen Costner that he just couldn’t bear to talk about the Panthers that night.

There would not be a postgame episode of MeowMix: A Carolina Panthers Podcast to break down the Week 4 loss.

What happened next—both with their podcast and with their beloved Panthers—was beyond their wildest dreams.

The podcast

Back in July 2019, Dempster and Costner—a couple of football-obsessed coworkers—decided to buy a couple of microphones and start a podcast dubbed MeowMix that would cover all things Panthers.

Over the next six-plus years, Dempster and Costner chatted Panthers football for hours upon hours, breaking down key matchups ahead of games, recapping wins and losses, and even scouting prospects leading up to the NFL draft. Over time, MeowMix built a small but passionate community of listeners and Panthers fans.

When their first episode dropped in July 2019, there were plenty of reasons for optimism around the organization. Christian McCaffrey was healthy and coming off his first 1,000-yard rushing season. Cam Newton was set to return from injury troubles in ‘18, and the Panthers were only a few years removed from his MVP campaign and their run to Super Bowl 50.

It turns out there wasn’t much to be optimistic about. From the time MeowMix debuted to that aforementioned 42–13 loss to the Patriots a few weeks ago, the Panthers went 30–74. Only the Jets had a worse winning percentage over that span. Newton played two games in ‘19 and was later cut, McCaffrey was traded to the 49ers in ‘22, and three coaches—Ron Rivera, Matt Rhule and Frank Reich—all got fired, the latter after just 11 games. In '22, the Panthers had Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield, now two of the top-performing quarterbacks in 2025, sharing a quarterback room but couldn’t make it work. Carolina traded a hefty package to select Bryce Young with the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft, only to go 2–15 that year and see the No. 1 pick in the ‘24 draft included in that deal go to the Bears, who selected Caleb Williams.

The misery got to a point where, according to Dempster, one of the podcasting pair's kids refuses to be a Carolina fan because the team “makes Daddy sad.”

The hiatus

In Year 6 of the podcast, with just one seven-win season to show for it, Dempster and Costner’s patience was running out. A 42–13 loss to a Patriots team still trying to find itself was the final straw. Would they really have to talk about another lifeless loss?

“We looked awful,” Dempster said to Sports Illustrated. “And it was like, ‘How do I keep doing this? How do I come back after this game, spend an hour away from my daughter, my wife, and talk Panthers football when it does nothing but depress me?’ I didn’t want to [record the podcast] then, [Costner] didn’t want to do it then. We talked back and forth and we’re like, ‘Let’s go on hiatus. Let’s reset our bounds for where we want to be.’”

A few days later, on Oct. 1, Costner wrote up a statement and shared it to social media. The MeowMix hosts let their followers know they were stepping away for the time being.

“Unfortunately, the last three seasons in particular have been extremely difficult as Panthers fans, and creating the type of content we enjoy has not been as exciting or enjoyable,” the statement read. “The amount of time on Sundays that we spend away from our wives and young children has become difficult to justify.”

And then the internet happened.

The post began to gain traction with Panthers fans, and then local media, and then national media outlets. As of Sunday morning, that post has over 1.5 million views along with thousands of likes, retweets and interactions.

“Then we had millions of views [on the post]. We’re like … O.K. I was laughing,” Dempster recalled watching his small podcast go viral.

From a bird’s eye view, MeowMix going on hiatus was a goofy and entertaining storyline—not about the podcast hosts themselves, of course. Their reasoning for turning off the microphones was more than understandable. The funniest angle of the story was that an NFL team was so incompetent for so long that its own fan-run podcasts had no other choice but to shut down.

The winning streak

If the Panthers kept losing, the story would have ended there. But out of nowhere, the team got hot.

In Week 5, Carolina battled back from a 17–0 deficit to beat the Dolphins 27–24 on the road. Rico Dowdle rushed for 183 yards the following week in a 30–27 win over the Cowboys, and the Panthers made it a three-game winning streak in Week 7 with a 13–6 victory over the Jets.

The timing was too good to be true. After the Panthers’ win over Miami, Dempster was a guest on the Pardon My Take podcast to chat about the decision to pause the podcast. In the following weeks, Reddit threads and social media graphics began to highlight the Panthers’ undefeated record since MeowMix called it quits.

The podcasts hosts are taking it all in stride.

“Absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it,” Dempster said with a laugh. “And I ain’t coming back until they lose because I ain’t jinxing the streak. Keep me on the sidelines.”

So, will they come back for more episodes down the road? It’s unclear, but Dempster sounded open to making a return to the microphone.

“I don’t know how [Costner is] feeling, but I’ve talked about maybe coming back once per week or so,” Dempster said.

That is, if the Panthers ever lose again. Week 8 will bring a tough test against the hungry 4–2 Bills, but Dempster’s not too worried. He predicted the Panthers to win 30–24, which would mean—yet again—there won’t be a postgame episode of the MeowMix podcast hitting the internet on Sunday evening.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Panthers’ Woes Caused This Podcast to Go on Hiatus. Now, They Can’t Stop Winning.