Carolina Panthers can’t do enough to triumph over Titans on Derrick Henry’s big day
On the game’s final consequential play — a convert-or-go-home fourth-and-6 just after the two-minute warning — Panthers rookie quarterback Bryce Young made a read at the line of scrimmage and fired a screen pass to DJ Chark.
It resulted in no gain.
And it encapsulated Carolina’s season to date.
The Panthers fell to 1-10 after their 17-10 loss to the unimpressive Tennessee Titans on Sunday at Nissan Stadium. The team that has been criticized for not being able to produce any chunk plays fell again after a despondent offensive performance. Their offensive stats: 258 total yards, one touchdown, one turnover.
Young finished 18 of 31 for 194 yards passing, with no TDs, no interceptions and one lost fumble. Chuba Hubbard led the team on the ground with 14 carries for 45 yards and the team’s only touchdown.
Derrick Henry, the Titans’ trusted playmaker, had a good day — 76 yards and two touchdowns — which aided a serviceable day by Tennessee rookie quarterback Will Levis, who finished 18 of 28 for 185 yards but had no turnovers.
Rookie receiver Jonathan Mingo had one of his best days as a Panther to date, hauling in four catches for 60 yards after being targeted a team-high six times. Hubbard led the team in receptions with five catches for 47 yards, followed by DJ Chark with three catches for 34 yards.
Veteran Adam Thielen, the team’s reliable pass-catcher, was frequently double-teamed and was a non-factor, with only one catch for two yards.
Here’s everything you need to know about the game, as it happened:
Score of Carolina Panthers vs. Tennessee Titans game
FINAL: Titans 17, Panthers 10
Live updates from Nissan Stadium in Nashville
Fourth quarter
2-minute warning: No scoring this quarter, and a failed fourth-down conversion by the Panthers right after the 2-minute warning should end this game. Carolina loses again and extends its 15-points-or-less streak another week, to five straight. The Panthers will fall to 1-10.
14:22: Panthers injury update: Receiver Laviska Shenault (ankle) won’t return, while offensive lineman Cade Mays (ankle) is questionable. The news just keeps getting worse for this offensive line.
Third quarter
8:06: Chuba Hubbard run to the right side turns into a Panthers touchdown, cutting the game’s margin to 17-10. Big possession to open the second half. That 11-play, 67-yard drive was aided a bunch by costly Tennessee penalties on key third downs, as well as a Bryce Young third-down scramble. Some life, at long last, for Carolina.
Halftime
The story of this game is pretty simple: Derrick Henry is good, particularly when his defense forces a strip-sack turnover and gives him 15 yards to work with, and rookie quarterback Will Levis is on.
Some halftime stats: Levis is 13 of 18 for 128 yards. Derrick Henry has 24 rushing yards and two scores. Bryce Young has proven he’s sharp today, but his offensive line is letting him down once again — the rookie is 8 of 16 for 80 yards with a fumble and has technically been sacked only once but has been pressured a ton.
Second quarter
0:00: The Titans put on a clinic on their final drive of the half, turning a five-play, 27-yard drive into points. The most important play was an 18-yard pass over the middle to Westbrook-Ikhine to get into field goal range, which was then followed up by a spike. Nick Folk 53-yard field goal is good. Titans lead 17-3 at halftime.
2:31: OK, a lot just happened. Bryce Young threw an absolute dot to DJ Chark for 15 yards to extend a drive on third-and-15. Then came a false start. Then a Young strip-sack. The Titans then took over from the Carolina 15, and saw another Derrick Henry touchdown two plays later.
8:47: Injury update: DJ Johnson (neck) and Chandler Zavala (knee) are each questionable to return.
8:51: Panthers take over for their second drive of the day and show some life. A third-down Titans penalty extended the drive. Then an impressive Bryce Young 11-yard scramble got another first down. Rookie Chandler Zavala suffered an injury, bad news for an already depleted offensive line. Young slung a beautiful throw on fourth-and-3 from the Tennessee 37; it was originally ruled a catch by Stephen Sullivan, and after replay review, the ruling stood to extend the drive. It was ultimately punctuated by a 50-yard field goal by Eddy Piñeiro.
Check out this run by Young, which includes a first-down point, a modest celebration by most standards but a big one for Young:
First quarter
0:34: The Titans punctuate a 15-play, 91-yard drive that takes up 9:36 with a 1-yard touchdown from Derrick Henry. The drive featured a gutsy fourth-down call near the Titans’ 30-yard line — which underscores the short-term stakes of this game, does it not? Rookie quarterback Will Levis is 8-for-10 for 99 yards and a passer rating of 107.9 at the moment, and was 7-for-7 on the march. It was Tennessee’s longest drive of the season.
10:10: After those first two possessions, it might not be worth providing updates after each drive. But for posterity’s sake: After a chunk play to Jonathan Mingo on the first play, the Panthers got into a third-and-1 situation ... and then lose eight yards on a head-scratching play call that featured forgetting to block the Titans’ best defensive player, Denico Autry. The cool news? A nice Johnny Hekker punt forces the Titans to start inside the 20.
13:14: That’s a four-and-out for the Titans’ first possession, highlighted by a 19-yard catch by Deandre Hopkins. The defense is solid once again. Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers will start their first drive of the day from the 20.
Kickoff, 1 p.m. ET: Let’s do this! Also, play-by-play announcer Adam Amin shares his appreciation for the viewers of this broadcast today: “If you’re watching this, you sure love football!”
12:45 p.m. ET: Jeremy Chinn and Shaq Thompson, both injured, made the trip to Nashville and are on the field. Their absences are just a few of the notable ones on a defense that’s in injured disrepair. Many defensive guys have gotten and are getting their shots with the Carolina Panthers as a result, though. Among them is defensive end Chris Wormley, who is minutes away from playing in his first game in nearly a year after recovering from ACL surgery.
12 p.m. ET: We’re about an hour away from kickoff in Nashville! See below for the inactive announcements from both teams as well as our picks for who will win this one. The Observer’s Mike Kaye is on the ground at Nissan Stadium. Here’s a glimpse of the on-field sights from Nashville.
Panthers make last-second roster decisions before Tennessee
Carolina announced a bunch of notable roster decisions about an hour and a half before kickoff. Among them:
▪ With Austin Corbett being placed on injured reserve last week, Brett Toth has been moved to the starting lineup with Cade Mays and Nash Jensen also active.
▪ For another week, wide receiver Terrace Marshall Jr. will be inactive. So will running back/returner Raheem Blackshear and backup tackle Ricky Lee. Laviska Shenault will handle returning duties.
▪ Backup quarterback Andy Dalton has been added to the injury report due to an illness, but he is active for Sunday’s contest.
▪ Also, practice squad guys Chris Wormley and Lamar Jackson — no, not that one, the cornerback — will be making their Carolina Panthers debuts.
Full list of Panther inactives: RB Raheem Blackshear, CB CJ Henderson (concussion protocol), OT Ricky Lee, TE Hayden Hurst (concussion protocol), WR Terrace Marshall Jr.
Full list of Titans inactives: WR Treylon Burks, S Terrell Edmunds, QB Malik Willis, LB Caleb Murphy, LB Trevis Gipson.
Charlotte Observer writers pick Titans-Panthers game
Tennessee opened the week as a four-point favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook. The over/under started at 37 points. For accountability purposes, columnist Scott Fowler is riding strong with an 8-2 record. Mike Kaye, Alex Zietlow and Langston Wertz Jr. all sit at 6-4 heading into Week 12.
Scott Fowler: Titans 16, Panthers 12. If Carolina can get to 17 points in this matchup, the Panthers can actually win one. With this offense, though, that’s hard to imagine. The Panthers’ best chance is to get a defensive or special-teams score. But Tennessee, as bad as the Titans also are, also has triple the wins of Carolina.
Mike Kaye: Panthers 17, Titans 16. Listen, the only way to make up ground in this picks race is to chase a winnable matchup after watching a trio of devastating losses. The Panthers are an awful team, and frankly, it’s hard to feel confident in a win with any game left on the slate after the way this offense has played over the past month. But the Titans’ offense isn’t much better, and it just kind feels like Carolina is due for a fluky upset win. The Panthers should try to air it out against a struggling Tennessee secondary. But will they? That’s easier said than done these days.
Langston Wertz Jr.: Titans 20, Panthers 17: The Titans have lost three games in a row and 14 of their past 17, dating to last season. The Panthers have lost three in a row and are 1-9. Both teams have scored 20 points in a game just three times this season, so don’t expect a shootout. And both teams are probably looking at this as one of few, if any, winnable games remaining on the schedule. The lean goes to Tennessee playing at home with a coach, Mike Vrabel, on the hot seat.
Alex Zietlow: Titans 24, Panthers 14. The Panthers haven’t scored more than 15 points since Week 6. Don’t expect that to change this week. The Titans’ offense isn’t all that impressive either, to be clear — but at least they have a trusted playmaker in running back Derrick Henry and a you-don’t-know-what-you’re-gonna-get gunslinger in rookie Will Levis. This one is inconsequential and insignificant and could very well leave all of its football-loving viewers inconsolable. Let’s do this!
This story was originally published November 24, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
