One awful penalty. Two missed kicks. Panthers beat themselves, but don’t blame PJ Walker
One helmet removal plus two missed kicks added up Sunday to one of the silliest Carolina Panthers losses I’ve ever seen.
DJ Moore — a veteran who absolutely must know better — took his helmet off in the end zone following his dramatic touchdown with 12 seconds to go that tied the game at 34.
Eddy Piñeiro still had two walk-off, game-winning kicks waiting for him, but he hooked both a 48-yard extra point (the 15 extra yards due to Moore’s penalty) at the end of the fourth quarter and a 32-yard field goal in overtime wide left.
Instead of finishing, Carolina fell to pieces.
The Panthers were exciting, but also undisciplined and managed to lose a game they could and should have won twice.
Final score, in overtime:
Atlanta 37, Carolina 34.
But all of that shouldn’t take away from the fact that “The PJ Walker Experience” is now in full flower for Carolina, and what we saw Sunday was enough so that Walker should continue to keep the starting job over highly-paid, we-didn’t-come-here-to-be-backups-but-here-we-are QBs Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield.
Walker threw for 317 yards, with 250 of them coming in the second half after he rebounded from a nasty first half. The heave that went to Moore for a nutty 62-yard touchdown with 23 seconds left and Carolina down 34-28 was one of the most remarkable in Carolina history from a degree-of-difficulty standpoint. It traveled more than 67 yards through the air and was one of the longest throws, in terms of pure yards through the air, in the NFL over the past decade.
As for the game itself, Walker said afterward: “It was crazy. It was insane. But it was fun. I felt we had a lot of fight in us today.”
Walker’s 62-yard throw should have resulted in a win but didn’t. That’s not Walker’s fault. He rolled left and threw the ball halfway to Alabama, doing what he needed to for Carolina (2-6) to win the game and pull into a tie for the NFC South lead, only for Moore to ruin a perfectly grand moment by taking off his helmet to celebrate.
No less an NFL luminary than Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes called Walker’s Hail Mary “the best throw of the year” on Twitter.
Moore’s ensuing penalty, though, resulted in a 48-yard extra point try for Piñeiro instead of a 33-yard one, and he pulled it left by about a foot.
Walker then never got to throw the ball in overtime, as a Carolina interception by CJ Henderson, the ensuing 54-yard interception return and three conservative running plays set the Panthers up for what should have been a 37-34 win — if Piñeiro could only make a kick NFL kickers are supposed to make 95% of the time.
Instead, Piñeiro hooked it left — again! — from 32 yards away.
Atlanta (4-4) quickly drove for the game-winning field goal, and that was that. If Piñeiro remains on this team by Tuesday, I’ll be surprised.
As for Walker, Carolina’s fourth-string QB in training camp — he led the Panthers to what was easily a season high in points, but he was far from perfect. That’s also part of “The PJ Walker Experience.”
Walker’s most egregious error was trying to lob a screen pass over Atlanta’s Lorenzo Carter in the waning seconds of the first half, which Carter gladly leaped up and returned for a 28-yard touchdown that needlessly changed a 10-7 Carolina lead into a 14-10 halftime deficit.
But Walker also led the Panthers to three fourth-quarter touchdown drives. The first two ended with touchdown runs from D’Onta Foreman, as Carolina took a 28-24 lead. Then came the 62-yard throw, when Moore somehow got behind double coverage and made his crazy-good catch before his crazy-bad penalty.
“Just was giving DJ an opportunity to go make a play,” Walker said of the throw. “I put it in the air for him. He did a great job just tracking the ball.”
In terms of longevity, Walker outlasted his old college coach Matt Rhule for the Panthers. And it was interim coach Steve Wilks who made the interesting (and correct) decision to start Walker over a “healthy-enough” Mayfield this week. Walker deserved that nod, because he was impressive a week ago in a two-passing-TD, zero-turnover game he played in a 21-3 win over Tampa Bay.
That was Good PJ, but Sunday showcased a lot of Bad PJ in the first half — the same quarterback who, in his career, had twice as many interceptions as TD passes entering this game (8-4).
That’s the Walker who, because he does have the arm to sling the ball all over the field, will make some ill-considered decisions and try to fit balls into places he shouldn’t.
The game was particularly significant because the NFC South is like a bunch of 5-foot-7 guys trying to dunk on a 12-foot rim this season.
If New Orleans and the Panthers had both won on Sunday, the four NFC South teams would be 3-5, with Carolina technically in the lead because of the best divisional record.
The NFL has one division like this every year, and this season it’s the NFC South’s turn. It has happened before, back in 2014, when a Panthers team with a 3-8-1 record somehow won the league by winning its final four games to finish 7-8-1.
The Saints did their part Sunday, but Carolina didn’t. Now the Panthers are instead in last place in the NFC South. The good news is they’re back in the running for the No. 1 NFL draft pick, although they’re playing well enough right now that they probably won’t get it.
“We’ve got a helluva team in that locker room,” Walker said. “We’ve got a lot of fight and a lot of pride.”
But they are also 2-6, and they can thank Moore and Piñeiro for that.
This story was originally published October 30, 2022 at 5:45 PM.
