Um, yeah.
No one is excited about the Panthers.
Some of that is we've beat them quite a few times recently.
Some of that is they don't have any real strong media personalities other than Cam Newton.
We all know other teams that have "notorious" players which I think is why the 49ers games have so much sizzle, even in the regular season.
I also definitely think that this year, for whatever reason, the holiday period seemed a lot more deep holiday i.e. it really felt like everyone went out of town and/or was doing zero work and was home with the family. I've had a whole bunch of people contact me just in the last couple days about things I sent to them two weeks ago. So there's a little bit of a holiday hangover.
Tickets often fluctuate dramatically when you get three days out -- StubHub doesn't allow regular listings after a certain date, and people who were asking too much suddenly get nervous and drop prices because they don't want to be outside selling tickets pregame. It's really common for prices to start somewhere, drop a bit when the public on sale happens, then slowly go up, and then drop down about four days out. It's basically panic selling... not a reflection of the dedication of the fan base, except to say that people weren't snapping up tickets early.
We might act independent, but we are not, example if the Giants or Redskins or Cowboys or Packers or 49ers or {insert big media NFC team here} were coming, we'd see tickets sell a lot faster and not only because of their fans traveling, because there are more transplants here from those places, and because the game would have more sizzle and would get the guy who only goes to an NFL game once every few years.