Panthers were mistake-prone in loss to Raiders, but Matt Rhule era starts with promise
With 1:23 left in the game, the Panthers had the ball at the Raiders’ 46-yard line, down 34-30.
On fourth-and-1, as the final seconds of the game ticked down, quarterback Teddy Bridgewater handed the ball off to fullback Alex Armah, who needed about a half yard and had touched the ball only once up to that point in the game.
In fact, the only other time time he got the ball was when the exact same play was run earlier in the quarter. On that play, he picked up the needed yard on third-and-1.
But this time, with the game on the line, Armah was stuffed.
And with just two timeouts to work with and the clock quickly expiring, the Panthers were powerless to stop the impending loss.
“I’m not second guessing anyone that’s a head coach decision-type thing. To me that’s something that I have to think about walking away from this,” head coach Matt Rhule said on not giving the ball to running back Christian McCaffrey. “It had worked before, so we thought it would work again, but I think when you write up who to blame for that, I think the only person you can blame is the head coach.”
Throughout the Panthers’ first of the game season, there were chances and flashes. But it wasn’t a finished product just yet. Good, but not good enough.
The game ended on a drive that stalled at midfield with a Carolina offense that showed the potential of being able to leave victorious, but not being able to click at the level necessary, especially on defense.
In the first game of the Rhule era, the Panthers, as expected, did not look like a finished product. Despite taking back the lead in the fourth quarter, the they weren’t able to do enough to take down the Raiders in their 34-30 defeat.
The Panthers were without their No. 1 corner Donte Jackson for a majority of the game due to an ankle injury. Despite Jackson’s absence — Rhule said he was “down medically” and that they’ll have to wait and see “just how bad he is” — cornerback Rasul Douglas, who was claimed on waivers a week ago — filled in well, finishing with two passes defensed. Rookie starting corner Troy Pride Jr. gave up a Carr touchdown pass to wide receiver Nelson Agholor that gave Las Vegas the lead in the second quarter and was on the wrong side of a couple of throws, but otherwise played fine, finishing with seven tackles.
The Panthers’ run defense was a mixed bag with the Raiders’ Josh Jacobs appearing to do anything he wanted at times, but only averaging 3.7 yards per carry. He finished with three rushing touchdowns and 93 yards on the ground, in addition to 46 receiving yards.
The defense did struggle to get pressure on Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, who was not sacked once amnd had plenty of time to find open receivers. Carolina failed to register even one quarterback hit and had just one tackle for loss. Missed tackles became an issue for the defense — including veteran safety Tre Boston missing on a 29-yard catch-and-run by the second-year back.
The Panthers allowed the Raiders to score on six of their nine possessions, including four touchdowns.
But the mistakes began to flow in the second half. After having zero penalties in the first two quarters, the Panthers quickly accumulated four for 47 yards — including a taunting penalty on DJ Moore after an incomplete passed that pushed the offense out of the red zone — in a rough third quarter that saw the Panthers score zero points while giving up 10. They finished the game with five penalties for 65 yards.
While the Panthers did eventually score on the drive Moore was penalized, they took precious time off the clock and made things more difficult than needed.
Linebacker Tahir Whitehead was called for two pass interference penalties — both against former Clemson wide receiver Hunter Renfrow — including a costly one in the fourth quarter that occurred on third-and-8 when the Panthers desperately needed a stop. Three plays later, the Raiders scored the game-winning touchdown on a six-yard run by Jacobs.
“They called it the way they saw it. It was five yards, he ran an option route, played inside, came around a man. They called that one and said I hooked him,” Whitehead said of the play. “At the end of the day I can’t really harp on that. Just gotta keep working my technique.”
Bridgewater and McCaffrey gave the Panthers a chance in the fourth quarter with two key possessions, including a 7:57 scoring drive that ended with McCaffrey’s second rushing touchdown of the day. The running back finished with 96 rushing yards and 38 receiving yards on 26 total touches.
After the’ defense got the Raiders off the field after five plays, the Panthers got the ball back.
Following a two-yard run by McCaffrey on first down, Bridgewater unleashed an absolute bomb to Robby Anderson — a 75-yard touchdown pass that gave the Panthers the lead for the first time since the second quarter. They then converted the two-point conversion that followed (making the score 30-27), a smart play by Bridgewater, who was able to find Anderson in the back of the end zone.
But Las Vegas’ game-winning drive —including the Whitehead pass interference — followed. While the Panthers got the ball back with 4:08 remaining at their own 30-yard line, the drive stalled after four straight McCaffrey runs and then the failed play by Armah.
“I don’t think it matters if I was surprised or not,” McCaffrey said of the play. “It was a call — Alex [Armah] is a heck of fullback and is very capable of getting that. It’s a play we’ve scored on before, it’s a play we ran before and had success but it is what it is. Maybe they make an adjustment, maybe they don’t, but all I know is that it doesn’t matter. It happened and we’ve got to move on.”
Overall, Bridgewater and the offense had a good day with the quarterback often avoiding pressure and making plays with his legs. He finished 22 of 34 for 270 yards, getting the ball to seven different receivers with drops by Moore and Curtis Samuel during the game, and was only sacked once — a play in the third quarter he called his fault after the game and said he wished he had back.
“I tried to find Christian,” Bridgwater said of the play. “If that’s the one throw that I wish I could have made, it was that one, just giving up that one sack.”
The failed drive at the end, just a hair and chain measurement short of keeping the drive alive, was the perfect image to describe what went wrong for the Panthers on Sunday.
Just that close, but still a young team with of growing to do.
“I told them (the team after the game) they should be disappointed, but they certainly shouldn’t be discouraged,” Rhule said. “To lose one of our best defenders early on, have Rasul, who’s only been here for four days go out there and play, to battle back from some early big plays to fight, scratch and claw to take the lead back at the end of the game. I was proud of the guys. We were just a play away. We said as a team that we would get to the fourth quarter and we thought we’d have a chance to win in the fourth quarter and we did.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM.
