Panthers offense good enough (with help) to beat Jets, but that won’t cut it vs. Saints

There was a lot of talk Sunday about ugly wins, bailouts and surviving and advancing in the run-up to playoff football.

And while it’s true the Carolina Panthers were able to turn back the New York Jets 35-27 on a gray, coldish day at an outdoor stadium against a middling team, Cam Newton’s 168-yard passing performance won’t be enough next week in a climate-controlled dome against a New Orleans Saints team that entered the weekend with the league’s top-ranked offense.

“Call it whatever you want – a bye-week hangover, whatever. We got a win,” Panthers tight end Ed Dickson said.

But …

“We’ve got to find a way to get better this week because it’s a hungry Saints team,” Dickson said. “We can’t play like that on offense and expect to win the game.”

The Panthers (8-3) won their fourth in a row on a day when Newton completed four passes to players not named Devin Funchess and was outplayed by 38-year-old Jets quarterback Josh McCown.

When and if Newton buys his linemen holiday gifts next month, he ought to throw in a couple for linebacker Luke Kuechly and punt returner Kaelin Clay.

Because in the span of 2:11 in the fourth quarter, the two cashed in a pair of returns timelier than any Black Friday takebacks.

Kuechly’s 34-yard fumble return for a touchdown – courtesy of a Wes Horton strip-sack on McCown – and Clay’s 60-yard punt return for a score saved the Panthers from a crippling late-November loss.

The Jets (4-7) have a game defense and a dynamic playmaker in wideout Robby Anderson, who pulled in a pair of long touchdown catches. But they’re a team that will miss the playoffs for the seventh year in a row and one that a team with Super Bowl aspirations simply can’t lose to.

And yet they led 20-18 in the fourth quarter before Horton’s sack started a game-turning, two-minute sequence.

“I just think we were playing down to their standard. It’s as simple as that,” Horton said. “We just let it be a little too close. We were able to make some big plays late to not get rattled, not get too flustered and we were able to pull it out.”

The Panthers scored two return touchdowns in the fourth quarter for the first time since the inaugural season of 1995, when Carolina practiced at Winthrop and played home games at Clemson.

Clay has bounced around several teams and had played in only 14 career games before Sunday. But even Clay knew this was one the Panthers couldn’t let slip away.

“It’s November football. Championship teams win in November and December,” he said. “We had to find a way to get a touchdown.”

Struggling elsewhere

It wasn’t going to be through the air.

The addition of Christian McCaffrey has helped Newton improve his completion percentage, but that wasn’t the case Sunday.

Newton completed 11 of 28 passes for a 39.3 percentage that was the third-worst of his career. The 11 completions tied for the fourth-fewest of his career.

Imagine what Newton’s stats would have looked like without Funchess, who made seven catches for a season-high 108 yards.

But Newton said he was only concerned about the final result.

“Statistics wise, you can throw that pretty much out the door,” he said. “I’ve always said the most important statistic that I play for is whether we win or lose.”

The next test

This was a game the Panthers would have found a way to lose last year.

And while Newton said a couple of weeks ago he was beginning to get a special feeling about the season, the biggest test will come next weekend in the din of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

A few hours after the Panthers dispatched the Jets, the Saints (8-3) fell to the Rams in Los Angeles to create a two-way tie atop the NFC South.

New Orleans won the first meeting 34-13 in September, when Newton was sacked four times and threw three interceptions. The Saints ran up 362 yards against a Panthers’ defense that was ranked No. 1 at the time (and was back to No. 2 before Sunday’s games).

No wonder Horton said he was “very stoked” for another shot at the Drew Brees-led offense.

“We definitely want revenge on these guys after the first time we played them. It was close early and then it kind of got away from us,” Horton said. “Overall it just wasn’t a good performance offense or defense. We’re definitely looking forward to this one.”

But defensive end Julius Peppers wasn’t ready to start feeding the Panthers-Saints hype machine just yet. Peppers, with 16 years of experience, also understood the importance of Sunday’s victory – despite what it lacked aesthetically.

“A win is a win, regardless of how ugly or pretty it is,” Peppers said. “At the end of the year we look and see the W in the W column. That’s all that matters.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2017 at 8:13 PM with the headline "Panthers offense good enough (with help) to beat Jets, but that won’t cut it vs. Saints."