Analysis: Panthers loss to Packers shows they aren’t learning from mistakes. Why not?
Down 14-3 to the Green Bay Packers, the Carolina Panthers were looking for a spark.
The defense was out of sorts, the offense settled for a field goal on the previous drive. Suddenly, they were running the football with success. The Panthers had methodically marched to the 1-yard line when offensive coordinator Joe Brady tried to go tempo and quickly run a quarterback sneak into the end zone.
The problem?
The Packers sniffed it out. And when quarterback Teddy Bridgewater tried to go high and reach the ball across the goal line — something head coach Matt Rhule has instructed his team never to do unless it’s fourth down — linebacker Krys Barnes swatted the ball from his hands. Cornerback Kevin King did the rest of the work, picking up the ball and returning it 48 yards.
Instead of cutting Green Bay’s lead to 14-10 with what should have been an easy touchdown, the Packers scored seven plays later to go up 21-3.
Carolina’s defense came back and played an impressive second half, holding the Packers to 49 yards, the second-fewest in a second half by Green Bay since 1996. Despite the effort in the final two quarters, the fumble at the goal line loomed large and the Panthers lost, 24-16, to notch double-digit losses for a second consecutive year.
“That (fumble) was emblematic. You talk about a dramatic shift, had he done that on fourth down, I can live with it, right. But just not on first down, especially when I thought we ran the ball well when we did run it tonight,” Rhule said. “That’s a principle of our team, we don’t reach the ball across the goal line until fourth down.”
A 12-play, 65-yard second-quarter drive ended on the fumble. Not including the final play, Carolina ran 11 plays for 70 net yards that possession. Nine of those plays were runs by running backs Mike Davis and Rodney Smith and wide receiver Curtis Samuel that gained 47 yards.
But Brady was trying to catch the Packers off guard and sneak Bridgewater into the end zone.
“I heard the guys from the other team calling out the sneak. So I thought they were going to go low, so I was going to try to go over the top,” Bridgewater said.
His leap was met by Za’Darius Smith and limited the quarterback’s forward momentum.
Rhule was fine with Brady’s play call. It was the execution and a player trying to do too much, as has happened throughout the season, that he pointed to as the issue. Bridgewater was intended to go low and follow his blockers as he did in practice.
“We don’t reach the ball across the goal line until fourth down. It’s kind of a principle, we don’t do it. We never do it, and Teddy talked to the team, he said, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Get to the moment, you can’t do new things,” Rhule said. “You’re at Lambeau in December playing a good team you just have to just trust yourself.”
At the 1-yard line, options are limited for a quarterback sneak with a crowded box. Why let Bridgewater keep the ball on first down if they had been running it well? Rhule said that quarterback sneaks have had about a 90% success rate in the NFL this year.
Why didn’t Bridgewater change the play or call timeout? Carolina had three to burn. Offensive miscues and odd decision-making have been hallmarks of the Panthers’ season, especially as of late. The responsibility has been on different people depending on the situation and this time it was on Bridgewater.
Two games ago in Minnesota, they didn’t get the play to Bridgewater in the huddle soon enough on third-and-goal and he missed a wide-open DJ Moore in the back of the end zone.
And there was the fiasco against Denver when the offense ran a play before the two-minute warning despite Rhule saying that they should not. That communication error more so fell on Rhule and Brady.
That last one is important.
When asked after the game if Bridgewater had improvised the play call in Green Bay, Rhule quickly said it was a call from Brady.
“Teddy never ... unless we give him some latitude like last week, I feel like the problem was on us (against Denver), we gave him too much latitude,” Rhule said.
Last week’s mistake appears to have helped lead to this week’s bad decision-making by Bridgewater, who has run quarterback sneaks in his career, but isn’t known for his ability to do so.
Despite the disastrous play, the Panthers made it competitive, as they have all season, and are now 2-8 in one-score games. The offense picked up steam, including an improved second half by Bridgewater, and scored 13 points on three drives after starting the second half with a punt after five plays.
But they fell short on the eighth failed potential game-winning or -tying drive of the season (0-8) — assisted by a holding penalty on special teams and intentional grounding by Bridgewater to start the drive. The Panthers finished with seven penalties for a fourth straight game.
It was the defense that rose to the occasion and provided optimism for the future. They sacked Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers five times, despite him only being sacked 13 times on the year coming into the game. Defensive tackle Derrick Brown had the first two sacks of his career. Hybrid defender Jeremy Chinn and defensive end Brian Burns continue to impress, including Burns having two sacks of his own. Cornerback Rasul Douglas had a solid bounce-back game after Troy Pride left the with a groin injury. Undrafted safety Myles Hartsfield made a couple of nice plays.
But that fumble lingers. It put them in a hole that forced them to get away from the success they were having on the ground and proved insurmountable.
Carolina continues to lay the foundation for what this team can be, and there are plenty of positives. But this was a game in which they had a chance to pull off the upset, with the defense successfully limiting Rodgers. Explaining a head-scratching offensive play — that has nothing to do with ability — at the end of games has become a tradition that seems unlikely to be solved with two games to go.
“If I just continue to trust my coaches, do it the way I’m told then, we’re celebrating more in the locker room, as opposed to having to learn new lessons each week,” Bridgewater said. “I think if we can just generate our own energy, not have Coach get after us the way he did (at halftime), I think the leaders on this team, we have to do a better job of stepping up, the rest will transplant to the football field.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 11:43 PM.
