How Carolina Panthers respond to tough loss will show whether they can be great

Well, the Carolina Panthers didn’t just lose that one.

They handed it over. Served it right up, rang the dinner bell and then sat in a chair in the corner of while Washington ate.

Carolina turned the ball over three times in a 15-minute span in the first half of Sunday’s 23-17 loss. Washington scored 10 points off of those giveaways.

“I think that’s the difference in the game,” quarterback Cam Newton said. “This league is all about creating turnovers and capitalizing on turnovers. And those guys did. We kind of dug ourselves in a hole early.”

The Panthers also made the game just interesting enough to add a little zest to the otherwise tasteless, steaming mess they ladled out at Washington. They nearly came back after a 17-0 second-quarter deficit.

Newton hit nine consecutive passes to drive the Panthers downfield in the fourth quarter, including five in a seven-pass scoring drive to receiver Torrey Smith. Smith caught the touchdown pass and two-point conversion on the drive to cut the deficit to six points.

In fact, Newton completed 14 of 15 passes from the beginning of that touchdown drive until the final three plays of the game. But then, with 47 seconds left, the Panthers called three consecutive passing plays on second, third and fourth down from Washington’s 16. All were incomplete.

And when Washington quarterback Alex Smith took a knee to kill the clock, the Panthers were left with a very bitter loss.

There are no good losses, as NFL players and coaches like to say. This one just happened to be extra-bad. It stunk because of the turnovers, and the fact that it came on the heels of last Sunday’s thrilling victory over the New York Giants.

But here’s something else the Panthers will be saying in the locker room this week: What happens next is very important.

How Carolina responds is key. That was head coach Ron Rivera’s message was after the game.

“That’s all part of the game. You have bad things happen. And how do you respond?” Rivera said. “We’re learning, and we’re growing from it.”

But Rivera didn’t need to say it. Carolina’s locker room was vocal after the game about their need to answer with poise.

“You can’t get too high, you can’t get too low,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “And I think that’s the biggest thing. ... When things don’t go your way, especially in the first quarter, we’ve got a lot of ball left to play. It’s the same way in the season. We have a lot of games left this season. It’s up to us to get back to the drawing board and get back there and execute the way we know we can.”

Rivera said the veterans will “be a little salty” on Monday morning when the team goes through film. But after that, there will be no pity party.

“Obviously this is a tough pill to swallow, when you put so much energy, time and effort into something and you don’t get the turnout that you want,” Newton said. “But at the end of the day, nobody is going to feel sorry for you. We don’t expect nobody to feel sorry for us. We’ve just got to get ready for our next opponent.”

Ironically, that’s exactly what Washington did in capitalizing off Carolina’s mistakes on Sunday.

Washington got waxed by New Orleans in prime time on Monday night.

And the Panthers’ mistake six days later was giving a crumb of momentum to a desperate team. An embarrassed team.

“Their backs were a little bit against the wall,” Rivera said. “They had a tough one on Monday night, and they responded nicely for Coach (Jay) Gruden.”

Well, now the Panthers are the embarrassed ones.

And how they respond will set the tone of their season.

“Great teams play well all four quarters,” Smith said. “Good teams do it sporadically. If we want to be great, we have to be consistent. We had our chances, but we have to be able to do it every Sunday.”

Carolina’s actions this week, and the Panthers’ response next Sunday in Philadelphia, will determine whether they’re going to be a pretty good team most of the time, or a great team.

All the time.

This story was originally published October 14, 2018 at 6:51 PM.