John Fox, usually the model of high energy and enthusiasm, almost sounds a little down this Tuesday morning.

"The biggest thing," the Carolina Panthers head coach is saying, "is you have to stay focused. It's a roller coaster season and you're just trying to minimize the bumps. Right now, we're trying to direct our energy at Green Bay."

Trying, being the operative word here. Because in Charlotte and environs they are going slightly mad over their Panthers.

The Rams and Steelers -- the preseason Super Bowl teams of choice -- are a combined 0-5. The Panthers, coming off a bleak 1-15 season that featured an NFL-record 15 consecutive losses, were expected to be similarly swimming with the fishes. The undistinguished 1-3 exhibition season merely reinforced that thinking.

	Rodney Peete has thrown three TDs in three games.

And then the Panthers went out and won their first three games in the regular season. Their 21-14 victory over Minnesota last Sunday left them -- astonishing is not too strong a word for what has happened -- as one of the league's six undefeated teams. For the record, Carolina has tripled last season's win total. Let's see the Patriots do that.

To be truthful, even the players are giving into the giddiness. Fox, however, is doing his best to curb his considerable enthusiasm -- and everyone else's in the organization. He absolutely swears he isn't surprised his team is 3-0, which, if you believe him, makes him a minority of one.

"I'm serious," Fox says. "When you've been in this league as long as I have, nothing surprises you. Every Sunday, man, something crazy happens.

"Teams that play smart, tough football make it. More games are lost in this league than won, but if you can train your team to thrive on that and believe it, they'll win."

There is a yin and yang at work here as the Panthers and their fans wait for the other shoe to drop. The yang of it is that there is a historic reason to celebrate. In the five seasons from 1997-2001, 24 teams have started 3-0 and 19 of them made the playoffs. Those are pretty good odds.

And then there is the sobering context of the yin: The three teams the Panthers have beaten by a modest average margin of 21-9 --- the Vikings, Lions and Ravens -- are a collective 0-8. With the 3-0 New Orleans Saints also atop the NFC South and 2-1 Tampa Bay lurking just behind, winning the division will be difficult.

Fox, 47, was something of a surprise when he emerged from a pack of coaching contenders late last January. He had been the Giants' defensive coordinator from 1997-2001, but never in 24 years of coaching -- not even at Boise State or with the Los Angeles Express of the USFL -- had he been a head coach.

He approached the Panthers job like everything else in his life; he overwhelmed it with purpose and attention to detail. Frankly, the Panthers were an easy sell.

"It's human nature," Fox says. "It's like 'I'm willing to try anything to avoid that distasteful experience.' I mean, 1-15 is hard to stomach. My worst record in the NFL was 7-9 - I can't really understand it. To experience that as a competitor, well, it's devastating."

Maybe that's why 70-something Panthers -- every athlete under contract -- participated in the offseason conditioning program. Perhaps that's why, when the Panthers passed on quarterback Joey Harrington and cornerback Quentin Jammer in the draft and took North Carolina linebacker Julius Peppers, folks suspended their disbelief. Maybe that's why when Fox benched incumbent quarterback Chris Weinke before the opener and replaced him with Rodney Peete, a guy who hadn't thrown a ball in an NFL game since 1999, everyone took it in stride.

Well, no. Actually, everyone thought Fox had lost his mind.

Peete, who is 36, was told he would be Weinke's caddy, but a funny thing happened on the way to the regular season. Weinke, who is 30 but in only his second NFL season, was shaky. Peete, on the other hand, was poised.

"Unlike a lot of the media people, we're with them every day," Fox says. "We see them perform, we see how they affect everyone around them. He has great intangibles. He's a calming effect on the team, smart and efficient.

"Some people questioned the timing of it, but we were 1-3 in preseason. After going what he went through last year, Chris didn't have a whole lot of confidence. We just felt like we needed a spark."

Peete has heard all the jokes.

"They said 'He's old. He's going to be rusty. Are we going to have to get a wheelchair for him?' " Peete told ESPN's Sterling Sharpe last week. "Ray Lewis … he said he couldn't find any film on Rodney."

Sharpe wondered aloud if Peete was the only player in the league to be seen simultaneously on ESPN Classic and SportsCenter.

"I don't think we clown him too much," said wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad, who leads Carolina with 16 catches for 207 yards. "Other than the fact when we run our quarterback draws that you see him trying to take off and go up the middle."

At this point, Muhammad's voice takes on the pompous manner of one Howard Cosell.

"He's at the five," Muhammad says, smiling. "He's at the four. He's at the three. OK, he's at the three-a-half. Oh, he's back at the three again."

When tight end Wesley Walls first spotted Peete he approached him and asked him how old he was.

"He told me how old he was and I said, 'Good, good. You're older than I am. Welcome to the Carolina Panthers.' "

Peete, it turns out, is actually 18 days younger than Walls. Peete's wisdom -- this is his 14th season in the NFL and his sixth team -- makes him the right man for Fox's stripped down, efficient offense. Peete has completed 53 of his 81 passes for 667 yards and three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Both mistakes came in the first half of the Vikings game and underlined how fragile this offense can be. Trailing 7-0, the Panthers rode Lamar Smith's 30 carries for 154 yards, including two fourth-quarter touchdowns, draw plays of 12 and 24 yards, to the victory. The defense, young and aggressive, is ranked No. 2 overall (allowing 220.3 yards per game) and in scoring (9.3), although those numbers are colored by the quality of the opposition. The Packers will be a test for Peppers and last year's No. 1 pick, linebacker Dan Morgan, who leads the Panthers with 21 tackles. Safety Deon Grant, who had three interceptions against the Vikings, and defensive end Mike Rucker (five sacks, three against Minnesota) are also formidable defenders.

The fact that Carolina poses a viable threat at Green Bay, in light of the preseason expectations, is an almost ludicrous turn of events.

Back before the season, Charlotte Observer columnist Tom Sorensen wrote a column essentially congratulating himself for picking the 2001 Panthers to win two games. After last year's opener, a victory at Minnesota, he got ripped far and wide. He was, he wrote in this year's preview column, worse than a moron. He was a bad moron.

"Four months and 15 losses later," Sorensen wrote, "I was something else. I was a homer. The Panthers won only one game, half as many as I predicted. But I was closer than anybody else."

How prescient was Sorensen this year?

"When you go 1-15, the next level is 2-14," he wrote. "That's twice as many victories as last season. The Panthers go 2-14."

Predictably, Sorensen is suffering his share of abuse from the fans. The word moron has come up more than a few times. On the positive side, he hasn't seen any horses heads or fish wrapped in newspaper.

"Everywhere you go," Sorensen says, "the Panthers are all people are talking about. Your football team goes 1-15, your basketball team leaves … it was a pretty rough sports year around here.

"Everybody's happy down here. This is different."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.