Analysis: Panthers threw everything at Chiefs and almost pulled it off. Now they’re mad.

The Carolina Panthers came into Arrowhead Stadium as double-digit underdogs and losers of three straight.

Without one of the team’s best defensive players in hybrid safety Jeremy Chinn, the Panthers were in a difficult position against one of the best teams in the NFL.

Lingering issues of the 3-6 Panthers bubbled up once again. Penalties (a season-high 12), not coming out of halftime with adjustments and holes on defense.

But instead of bowing down to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, the Panthers did what they have done all season: Remained competitive and put it all on the table. And once again coming up just short, 33-31.

Despite all of the obstacles, the Panthers kept Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs (8-1) in reach with an impressive performance by quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and gutsy decision-making by head coach Matt Rhule. Once again, the Panthers left a visiting stadium a historic Joey Slye field goal shy of a different outcome.

“When you think about how we’re coming up short in these games, a game like today, it pisses you off. And especially when you play a team, as good as the Chiefs are,” Bridgewater said. “Obviously, you lose the game, sometimes you are able to learn from it and quickly put it behind this one. This is one of those games that pisses you off a little bit, at least it should piss you off.”

The Panthers were in command in the first half, winning the time off possession battle 19:23 to 10:37. That partly came from Rhule’s decision to go for it on fourth down in the red zone on Carolina’s first drive and try a fake punt on the next. Throughout the season, the Panthers have been forced to settle for field goals. Rhule knew they couldn’t do that against Kansas City.

“We felt like looking back over the course of our year, what’s kept us from winning more games (hasn’t) been not moving the football but it’s been scoring touchdowns, not field goals,” Rhule said.

Three of the Panthers’ four touchdown drives featured a fourth-down conversion (3/3 on the day).

The offense started the game with a statement drive of 15 plays in 8:53 that ended in a nine-yard Christian McCaffrey receiving touchdown on fourth down. It was the team’s longest offensive drive since 2014.

The next drive was extended by a decision fake a punt on fourth-and-7 from the Panthers’ 45-yard line. Without Chinn, who converted a fake punt last week against Atlanta, punter Joe Charlton threw a 28-yard pass to wide receiver Brandon Zylstra.

“The punt fake, to me, we thought we had it and it was one that if we didn’t have the look we could check out of it,” Rhule said. “Obviously, those things that are well-designed like that make it a lot easier to execute, to call, because you know that the way they’re set up, they will be executed.”

The drive ended with a 14-yard touchdown pass to Curtis Samuel that was assisted by a solid block from running back Mike Davis, giving the Panthers a 14-3 lead.

The Chiefs scored a touchdown in the first half on a crazy play by Mahomes, who snapped the ball while he was in motion, to Demarcus Robinson. But the Panthers still went into halftime up 17-13, thanks to a 47-yard Slye field goal.

It was the 15 minutes in the third quarter that caused the most issues.

On the first drive of the second half, the Panthers were cruising until McCaffrey was stopped for a loss of a yard from the Chiefs’ 33-yard line. McCaffrey ran up the middle on third down as well, picking up just a yard. A 51-yard Slye field-goal attempt bounced off the upright, giving the Chiefs the ball at their own 41-yard line.

“I’m still surprised that ball missed off that left upright,” Slye said.

Five plays later, a 44-yard pass to Travis Kelce led to a four-yard touchdown run by Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and the Chiefs took their first lead of the day. Kelce had a career-day, finishing with 10 catches for 159 yards.

While the Panthers came back in the game in the fourth quarter and kept it close, that stretch of plays proved hard to overcome.

Kansas City grew the lead even more on its next drive, finishing with a 28-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Tyreek Hill. After the game, safety Sam Franklin took responsibility for a miscommunication on the play.

“I’m going to go ahead and just say that was on me. Miscommunication with my corners,” Franklin said. “I’m the deep middle guy, I gotta let you know if we’re gonna zone it or stay on the man. I just gave communication to one side and didn’t give it to the other side in time. That’s completely on me. “

The Panthers didn’t score a point in the third quarter with their only other possession resulting in one yard. On 13 offensive plays in the quarter, the unit netted just 30 yards. The Chiefs made halftime adjustments more effectively and the penalties killed the Panthers, especially on defense.

“When you have 12 penalties in the game, it’s hard to deserve to win that game,” Rhule said “To play a team as good as the chiefs, it has to be a three, four, five, six penalty game. It can’t be a 12 penalty game.”

An impressive nine-play, 70-yard drive led by Bridgewater in the fourth quarter brought the Panthers within two, 26-24. The drive included a wild run by the quarterback on fourth-and-14 and ended in a four-yard Bridgewater touchdown run, his second of the season.

“I knew if I would have went down head first (on fourth down), they might have marked me down a little shorter,” Bridgewater said. “I just decided to take flight and sacrifice my body and try to get the first down.”

What followed was a failed onside kick after the Bridgewater rushing touchdown that instead allowed Kansas City to quickly build on its lead, 33-24. Bridgewater finished the game completing 36 of 49 passes for 310 yards and two passing touchdowns, in addition to the rushing touchdown. He was a large part of the reason the Panthers fought back, aided by solid plays from Curtis Samuel, who finished with a career-high 105 receiving yards — the first 100-plus yard receiving game of his career, and the return of McCaffrey.

The Panthers gave it all they had, getting back within two with McCaffrey’s second touchdown of the day, 33-31. McCaffrey finished the day with 18 carries for 69 yards and 10 receptions for 82 yards. He had one rushing and one receiving score.

A strong effort gave the Carolina offense the ball back with 1:26 remaining in the game and only needing a field goal, but a 67-yard attempt by Slye fell short as time expired.

“I feel confident in myself that I’m able to make those kicks or at least have the leg strength for them. That one was, we had a pretty heavy left to right wind, so the ball is gonna tend to fade to the right. With the way the wind was blowing , I felt like there was wind in my face on that one, similar to what was on the 51,” Slye said. “Trying to play and kind of mold those balls to play with the wind and find the right kind of the wind pattern and swing pattern, to be honest was pretty difficult today for me.”

Throughout the day, the Panthers’ offense looked the best it has all season long, but the defense continued to allow Mahomes to creep back in and take control.

The Panthers gave it everything they had and then some. But mistakes, a high-flying Chiefs team and an offensive lapse coming out of halftime created too big of a hole to come back from despite starting the game on a hilltop.

“With a game like this you come up short, it’s like man you are able to, yeah, measure yourself next to the defending champs but at the same time you don’t want to be satisfied with just coming up short,” Bridgewater said. “We play this game to win. We can easily say we fought, we played tough, that’s what we did, but we didn’t come up with the victory.”

Carolina Panthers 2020 schedule

This story was originally published November 8, 2020 at 4:28 PM.

Alaina Getzenberg

The Charlotte Observer

Alaina covers the Carolina Panthers for The Charlotte Observer. Before coming to Charlotte, she worked at The Dallas Morning News and The NFL Today on CBS. Support my work with a digital subscription