Are Panthers fans the friendliest fans in the NFL?

Panthers fans are just so darn nice, aren’t they?

Sure, there are always going to be exceptions. There was inevitably going to be that one guy who yelled something mildly crude to ... well, to no one in particular on Sunday, as he walked out of Bank of America Stadium onto Mint Street after the Panthers’ playoff win.

But this was a big win, after a long week of trash talk from Seattle fans, and it paved the way for the first NFC Championship Game ever to be played on Charlotte soil. If there was a time to gloat, this was it.

“Y’all played a really great game,” a woman in a Luke Kuechly jersey said as she noticed a woman in a Marshawn Lynch jersey walking next to her in the middle of Stonewall Street. The Seahawks fan looked surprised. And she looked even more surprised when the Panthers fan threw her arm around her in a half-hug.

Up at Church Street, a man wearing sunglasses and head-to-toe Panthers blue turned heads as he bent into a crouch, clenched his fists about ear-high, and yelled “Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhh!!!” His attention was on a 4-foot boy in a Russell Wilson jersey, who was making his way to the corner with his father.

“Let’sgoPanthers!!!” the Carolina fan shouted, like it was one word, except for drawing out the “errrrrrrrrrs” at the end. The Seattle dad seemed a little unsure. But the Panthers dude smiled broadly, double-high-fived the boy, then lowered his voice and sent the kid on his way with a sincere “Good game, buddy.” The Seattle dad seemed both pleased and relieved.

The only tension I saw all afternoon, in fact – and I spent a lot of time watching fans on Sunday – was between two Panthers fans:

A bald guy in a Kuechly jersey came upon a guy with a full head of hair in full Panthers regalia from head to ... ankle. On his feet, Guy With Hair had sneakers that were bright green and blue.

“Really?? You couldn’t find another pair of shoes to wear today?” Bald Guy asked, sounding incredulous (and genuinely perturbed).

“Dude, relax,” Guy With Hair responded, and – lacking a good comeback – added, “These are the only shoes I could afford.”

Bald Guy shook his head, and stormed off with a look of disgust on his face. Exactly three seconds later, though, he executed the non-sequitur play of the day: Bald Guy went out of his way to shake the hand of a surprised Seattle fan in a Kam Chancellor jersey.

As I watched this play out, I thought back to a conversation I had with Clayton Gring down on the field about an hour before kickoff.

Gring was enjoying pregame warmups from the back of the end zone with his family – wife Katherine and his sons George, 7, and Wade, 5, all visiting for the weekend from Houston.

George, a Burkitt’s lymphoma survivor, was selected as “the first pick in the NFL Make-A-Wish Draft” by the Panthers in 2014; as a part of his wish fulfillment, George got a one-day contract with the team and spent time stretching and tossing the football with hero Cam Newton.

Anyway, as George sat on a Panthers helmet (signed by tight end Greg Olsen) and watched the warmup Sunday, his father tried to put into words what “It” is, exactly, about fans of Charlotte’s NFL team.

“My friends are always asking, ‘What are the games like? Is it kind of rowdy?’ ” said Clayton Gring, who has now brought his family to the stadium three times as VIP guests of the team. “And I tell them: It’s not rowdy at all.

“... We went and saw the Panthers play in Dallas over Thanksgiving, and I’ll tell you, the atmosphere in Dallas and in Houston is a lot more adult-based, just a kind of rowdy atmosphere. You look on the Jumbotrons during the breaks and they’re always showing the bar scene, they’re holding up beers, drinking.

“But I feel like every time we’re here, you look at the Jumbotron and it’s a bunch of kids hanging out. I don’t know if that’s a difference between markets or what it is, but it’s a lot more fun. It’s a completely different feel. So we really like it.

“We feel like we kind of lucked out with George picking the Panthers (as his team). He picked ’em at a pretty good time, too.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Are Panthers fans the friendliest fans in the NFL?."