CHARLOTTE — When Panthers head coach Dave Canales talked to his team Saturday night at the team hotel, he offered up a message straight out of the Eminem/Alexander Hamilton playbook.

And some of them didn't even realize at the time that it applied to them.

Canales wasn't rapping, but he did get to repeat one of his favorite topics — one which has become a necessity in his first season as a head coach.

"It's about opportunity, and we talked about that last night — don't miss your shot," Canales said Sunday in the aftermath of his team's 36-30 overtime win against the Cardinals. "When you get a shot, make the most of your opportunities."

In this season of unexpected plot twists and injuries that have clumped up at particular positions, the number of guys getting those shots has grown exponentially.

Fortunately for the Panthers Sunday, they had people in place who were ready for them, even if casual fans might not have recognized many of them.

That interception late in the fourth quarter, which in an ordinary world might have been a game-clincher but nothing was ordinary about this one? That was undrafted rookie safety Demani Richardson, who made this team after showing up as a ball magnet in training camp.

That Kyler Murray fumble in the second quarter that helped the Panthers race out to a 20-3 lead? That was recovered by another undrafted, journeyman defensive end Jonathan Harris, who was signed off the Dolphins practice squad in October when the Panthers were looking for healthy bodies to play on the line. He's from the football powerhouse Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo.

Their starting inside linebacker plugging in a week after two guys at the position went on IR (joining the veteran signal-caller who went there after Week 4)? That was Jacoby Windmon (Coby for short), also an undrafted rookie from Michigan State. He was signed off the Steelers practice squad 10 days after Shaq Thompson went on IR, in part because of his familiarity with inside linebackers coach Pete Hansen, who coached him at UNLV.

It was that kind of day.

The Panthers' name players obviously had a lot to do with it — Bryce Young and Chuba Hubbard had their fingerprints all over this win — but this was everybody.

"I feel like there's definitely something special here," left tackle Ikem Ekwonu said quietly, still catching his breath after a long day and a long week. "Just week by week trying to put the pieces all together and play a complete game and finish the right way. I feel like we did that today.

"That's everybody. That's the defense getting stops there at the end and giving us the ball back, everything."

That Ekwonu could single out the guys on the other side of the ball was telling — and evidence of that complete effort that's been rare for a 4-11 team. The Panthers are at the bottom of the league in most of the significant defensive rankings, approaching all-time marks for points and rushing yards allowed.

And yet, in overtime, there was D.J. Wonnum tripping up Murray and Josey Jewell finishing him off inside the 10 to force the Cardinals to punt it back to the Panthers so Hubbard could win it, the kind of play they had to have on a day when stops were hard to come by. The Cardinals ran for 206 yards, and if running back James Conner wasn't injured in the third quarter, we might not be having this conversation since he was averaging 7.8 yards per carry.

The Panthers aren't built to be stingy on defense in any conventional way — that will only come with time and more people — but they're finding a way in the second half of the season to make just enough plays to be competitive.

Some of that showed up with Wonnum, as the veteran outside linebacker rejoined his team six weeks ago after his own weird 2024, in which surgery to repair a quadriceps injury led to an infection, which led to blood clots, which left him on blood thinners and unable to play football for months at a time. It's that kind of year for a lot of people. But since he rejoined the team in Germany, he has 4.0 sacks, a forced fumble, and three tackles for loss in six games. It's not solely him — Canales said when he returned that Wonnum was sliding into a defense that was collectively playing better together — but the difference is one you could see.

They had 10.0 sacks in the first nine games, but since that Week 10 game in Munich when Wonnum rejoined the team, the Panthers have 19.0 sacks, the third-most in the league over that six-week span.

Again, it's not conventional in any way.

Even on offense, the mostly normal side of the ball, Young was out there throwing key passes late in the game to a bunch of undrafted guys since his first-round pick was hurt, and the guy they traded for this offseason to be the lead guy was released by his second team last week. We'll pardon you if you're not familiar with Dan Chisena, who was signed to the practice squad the day after Windmon arrived from Pittsburgh. The former Penn State product began his NFL journey in Minnesota (watching the patron saint of undrafted wideouts Adam Thielen) and has made his way through Pittsburgh, Arizona, and Baltimore on the way to playing a role here. The only receiver they had in uniform Sunday who was drafted at all was David Moore, the former 226th overall pick in 2017, who was protecting his herd of cattle from coyotes when Canales called him offering an opportunity.

That's a ridiculous set of personnel, frankly. But this season has often bordered on the ridiculous, and last week, a simple respiratory virus played its own role in the story of the Panthers season.

And when that virus got a shot at the offensive line room, it definitely made the most of its opportunity.

Robert Hunt was one of the first to come down with it, missing practice Thursday.

"That s--- was no joke, and I'm happy for my health right now," Hunt said with a bit of a wheeze.

As soon as guys turn up sick, they try to sequester them immediately to keep it from spreading, but that's hard to do in a football environment when position groups meet together and share a lot of time and space.

"You know how it goes, somebody gets it, it kind of goes around," Hunt said. "We're all, we're with each other 24/7. We're with each other more than our family sometimes."

So Friday, Ikem Ekwonu missed practice with the same stuff, and that virus kept moving. By Sunday morning, starting center Cade Mays had it and wasn't able to go.

Super-sub Brady Christensen — who can capably play any position on the line, and that's a skill that's handy in a situation like this — said he found out around 9:30 a.m. Sunday, when he saw the news on Twitter that Mays was sick.

"We're all pounding vitamin C, washing our hands all the time, wearing masks," Christensen said. "We're all just trying to stay as healthy as possible, so you're ready to go if need be."

Around 11 a.m., they told Christensen to get ready to start, and he began snapping in pregame warmups. At 11:33 a.m., the news was official, and Mays was inactive, meaning yet another adjustment on the fly, another opportunity for another player.

And yet, it all worked out, with that wheezing and makeshift offensive line paving the way for 243 rushing yards.

"It was a great feeling to go get that win today, and it's just like, playing in the middle of all the guys on the O-line, it's like such a great opportunity because the players are just incredible," Christensen said with a grin. "D-Lew and Rob, Ickey and T-Mo just like incredible group around me, so really I just had to go in and do my job and rely on those guys and make the right checks, make the right points, get everyone on the same page, and I knew after that it was going to be all good."

Christensen's bounced all over the line; a former college left tackle who started every game at guard in 2022 before he was injured in the 2023 opener, then came to camp this year with instructions to learn to play center, which he did after Austin Corbett was lost for the season. Then he ended up back at left tackle when Ekwonu was injured, but Mays took over at center then, and Christensen wasn't sure he'd get back on the field.

But this is 2024 for the Carolina Panthers, so it seems like everyone gets a shot.

Sunday, in what they hope is a sign of things to come in the future, enough guys took advantage of those shots to make a difference.

And when coaches talk about culture, that's what it looks like.

"I don't think it's sunk in yet," Christensen said. "Dave last night when he was talking to us, he said, don't miss your shot. So that's what kept going through my mind, when I got the opportunity, don't miss your shot. . . .

"I think it's amazing to watch us play for each other type of thing. I think that's what is separating even this year from previous years. I know our record says what it is, but I feel like we're playing for each other, and no matter what record we're at, we're out of the playoffs, it's like we're playing for the guys next to us, and so I feel like that's been really cool to see, and you play well when you do that."