Hubbard despondent after mistake led to Panthers’ OT heartbreak: ‘Everyone is trusting me’
On Sunday, Bank of America Stadium saw so many plays that left its freezing fans with the frustrating query:
What if?
What if Eddy Piñeiro hadn’t missed those two first-half kicks? What if Adam Thielen’s leaping catch in the end zone at the end of the first half was ruled complete? What if the Panthers capitalized on the Bucs’ final overtime, wide-left mistake?
But the “what if?” question that lingered long after the lights dimmed in Charlotte’s largest venue arose in overtime, on the final offensive play the Panthers had. It was the one where running back Chuba Hubbard — at times the only reliable part of this still-learning-how-to-win team — fumbled the ball away with the Panthers a few yards and a field goal away from marching off the field victorious … a score away from somehow being a mere two games out of first place in the NFC South.
That question was still on the mind of Hubbard himself, at least, after the score went final: 26-23, cemented by a five-play, 59-yard scoring drive punctuated by a 30-yard field goal by Chase McLaughlin.
“Obviously sucks,” Hubbard said in front of his locker Sunday, referring to the fumble. “Game on the line. Gotta just run the ball, kick the field goal. The team, everybody is trusting me with the ball. I just gotta do better. I own it. I’m gonna be better. Obviously a horrible way to lose. But all I can do is own it.”
The play that changed the game and that will ring in Hubbard’s (and the whole team’s) head for a while: With 5:09 left in overtime, and with the Panthers on the 34-yard line, Hubbard broke through the A gap — between the center and the right tackle — and powered to the second level of the defense when Bucs outside linebacker Anthony Nelson reached his right hand out and stripped the ball free. The football then bounced and bounced and bounced before it was recovered by fellow OLB Yaya Diaby, with Young standing over the ball in disbelief. The game wasn’t over then, but it felt like it. And the feeling, less than three minutes later, proved true.
Hubbard lingered on the home bench for about a minute after the contest, despondent as both teams cleared from their sidelines and mingled at midfield. He was in shock, he said.
“Just disappointed in myself, obviously,” said Hubbard, who finished with 43 yards on 12 carries Sunday. He came into the contest fifth in the league in rushing yards (876) and 10th in rushing touchdowns (seven). “With everything that had happened in the game, for us to be in that position to put it away, I expect better for myself. I know everyone does. Like I said, they trust to give me the ball in that situation. I gotta do my job.”
This was merely the fifth lost fumble of his career, per Pro Football Reference. Only the third of his season. And it came in the biggest moment of his biggest year to date — the one where he’s running like a Top 10 running back in all of football and earned a “life-changing,” four-year contract extension because of it.
Hubbard said his teammates had his back postgame.
“They lifted me up, supported me,” Hubbard said. “But at the end of the day, I hold myself to a high standard. We’re trying to change things here, and that’s not helping with anything. So I gotta be better, like I said. All I can do is just work. It happened. I just gotta grow from it. … Just going to keep doing what I always do and work hard.”
The rest of his teammates were quick to defend Hubbard, who is widely cited as the team’s best leader. The first to do so was Jonathon Brooks, the team’s second-string running back who played in his second NFL game Sunday and made plays that made Panthers fans secure about the future of the backfield.
“I just told him I’m here for him,” said Brooks, who took six carries for 18 yards and caught three passes for an additional 23. “I don’t like to do too much. … I’m basically just like his little bro. He’s taken me under his wing. He’s told me a lot of things on and off the field, just as far as recovery and everything else.”
Brooks added: “Sucks that it had to happen to Chuba. But he’s a grown man. He’s tough. So we’re going to be fine as a team.”
Robert Hunt, the indelible right guard who has helped pave Hubbard’s great season, agreed with the rookie.
“He’s done so many great things for us and put us in position to win games,” Hunt said. “It’s an up-and-down league, man. That’s part of this game. One day you’re up, one day you’re down. I talked to him earlier. He works his ass off. So I know he’s going to come and he’s going to work and work and work.
“Guys like that: he’s going to be alright because he knows what he’s doing.”
Thielen, the Panthers’ veteran receiver, gave the most impassioned response.
“It’s probably the easiest to not be upset with him, just by the way that he works, the way that he puts so much time into this game, this body, his technique,” Thielen said. “He puts so much into his preparation that he’s a guy that you just say, ‘This is football. It happens. We know your heart. We know what you’re trying to do.’
“We love that guy. And it’s because of what he puts in, week in, week out. I know not one person in this locker room is thinking about him losing us that game. That’s the farthest thing from the truth. He needs to know that from everyone.
“He’s been carrying us as a team this whole year. So obviously so much love for him.”
What Dave Canales said on Hubbard fumble
Head coach Dave Canales was brief in his assessment of the overtime period. When asked specifically what he told Hubbard after the game, he said it was a reiteration of the “fundamentals.”
His thoughts on the whole game:
“We gotta make kicks,” Canales said. ”We gotta take care of the ball at the end right there, we’re in field-goal position right there to win it in overtime. Just the execution all across the board. There’s some good football in there, but there’s some bad football we gotta continue to attack.”
But Canales went on to say this game wasn’t won or lost on that one play. There were several other areas the team needed to improve upon. The red zone, for one: The Panthers turned only one red zone trip into a touchdown, a problem that plagued them in their similarly close loss last week to the Kansas City Chiefs.
For another, controlling the ball: Xavier Legette had a key drop Sunday. So did David Moore. And for as great as Thielen was, he even had a drop that lingered in his mind. And to be clear, he was great: The 34-year-old wideout not only caught the go-ahead touchdown at the end of regulation to push the score to 23-20 with 30 seconds left but also made a one-handed grab the play before Hubbard’s fumble that would make Odell Beckham Jr. stans jealous.
But the one dropped — or that was ruled an incompletion — was still on his mind. It came at the end of the first half, with just over 10 seconds left on the 8-yard-line, after second-year quarterback Bryce Young fired in a dart on a skinny post that Thielen initially bobbled before corralling it in.
The sideline erupted once the replay was shown on the video board. Canales jumped, too. Officials, in a postgame pool report, said that even though Thielen’s knee did land inbounds — which would’ve made his catch good — his possession didn’t maintain through his fall to the turf. Or, as NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth called it, Thielen’s catch didn’t “survive the ground.”
Thielen took accountability for the play postgame.
“I went and sat on the bench thinking it was for sure a touchdown after I saw the replay,” Thielen said. “But again, I catch it the first time and I don’t have to talk about it.”
Said Hunt on that play — but also what the game represented, how the Panthers are truly a few plays away from a completely different season: “We’re trying to do something special, and we’re not there yet. We gotta learn to win games like this. And once we learn how to win games like this, it’ll be a different outcome. We’ll feel a lot better.”
And that’s what Sunday was. A “game like this.” One of the closest of margins that makes every momentum swing feel like delirium— from angry at the officials, to joyful at an opportunistic and turnover-minded defense, to ecstatic at a Bucs overtime missed field goal, to despondent at Hubbard’s fumble and the Bucs’ win.
“Just a good play by the defense,” Hubbard said, shrugging, searching for anything to say that could soften Sunday’s blow. “I gotta have two hands on the ball in that situation. Simple as that.”
This story was originally published December 1, 2024 at 10:26 PM.
