Misses to remember: Panthers kicker Eddy Piñeiro puts Falcons overtime loss on himself
An emotional Eddy Piñeiro sat on a chair at his locker with his back facing the rest of the room.
The Carolina Panthers kicker, who had just missed two crucial kicks in Sunday’s wild 37-34 overtime loss to the Atlanta Falcons, was being consoled by veteran punter Johnny Hekker, who sat inside a locker to the left of Piñeiro.
After taking a deep breath, Piñeiro — despite multiple blunders on offense, defense and special teams — took the blame for the shootout loss to the Falcons, just as he had done minutes earlier with teammates.
“I just said it’s on me,” Piñeiro said. “They fought hard, and I put this on myself.”
Piñeiro, 27, was forced into a whirlwind situation with 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
With the Panthers trailing by six points, quarterback PJ Walker heaved a ball to the end zone, and wideout D.J. Moore split two defenders to haul in a 62-yard touchdown pass. Moore, who had dropped a fourth-down pass on the previous series, got up and celebrated by taking off his helmet and throwing the headgear to the ground.
The referees immediately penalized Moore for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the Falcons elected to use the 15-yard penalty on the follow-up extra-point attempt.
Piñeiro jogged onto the field thinking he was going to have a typical 33-yard chip shot. Instead, following the penalty, Piñeiro was forced to attempt a 48-yard extra point with a 34-34 tie. He missed it, wide left, pushing the game to overtime.
“I didn’t see (the flag) until I had to back up,” Piñeiro said. “I thought it was going to be a regular 33-yarder, and they said there was a penalty and I had to back up. I’ve just got to make the kick, there’s no excuses.”
Despite Piñeiro’s earlier miss, the Panthers were able to set him up for a 32-yard field-goal attempt in overtime, under the chip-shot range of an extra point.
Following a 54-yard interception return by cornerback C.J. Henderson and three consecutive runs by running back D’Onta Foreman, Piñeiro lined up for the potential game-winner, again, and failed to split the uprights, again.
“It’s just frustrating,” Piñeiro said. “We have a good team, I wanted to come through for them, and today I didn’t.”
Long snapper JJ Jansen said the specialist trio went over the extra point miss after the failed attempt. Jansen and Piñeiro both agreed that the blocking and overall routine were sound. The results, not so much.
“Everything felt pretty smooth,” Jansen said. “There’s always things we can improve on. We can check on all of that as a way to go forward, but had great protection — the guys up front were fantastic for us all day. Obviously, everyone kind of played their butts off, and it hurts to not finish everything at the end, but our guys fought for us the whole day — just a tough way to lose.”
Following the game, Moore said he didn’t speak with the specialists about either of Piñeiro’s misses. Jansen, Hekker, backup quarterback Baker Mayfield and defensive tackle Derrick Brown were among the handful of teammates who offered Piñeiro support before and after his chat with the media.
“He’s a professional,” rookie linebacker Brandon Smith said. “Had a couple of bad kicks or whatever, but I know he’s going to go back to the drawing board, and he’s going to do what he needs to do to capitalize in those moments like we had today. He’ll be fine.”
Piñeiro had made 14 of 15 field goal attempts and all 12 of his extra point attempts before the two misses against the Falcons.
The veteran kicker — who signed with the team in August as replacement for an injured Zane Gonzalez — had been one of the more reliable performers on the Panthers’ roster prior to the letdown in Downtown Atlanta.
The defense gave up 30 points to the Falcons. The offense gave up a pick-six and had seven penalties.
But, unfortunately for Piñeiro, most spectators will remember his two glaring misses in game-winning situations over everything else.
“It hurts,” Piñeiro said. “I love this team — and I know they’ve got my back. I know this is not going to define me as a kicker, everybody misses kicks, and unfortunately, my time was today. And I’m going to bounce back and be ready to kick.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2022 at 7:06 PM.
