For Panthers, Young and Legette, hope and despair emerge from one fourth-quarter pass
There are two halves to every football pass, and those two halves on Sunday displayed both hope and despair for the Carolina Panthers.
Trailing 22-16 on the road to a Philadelphia Eagles team riding an eight-game win streak, the Panthers were on the verge of doing something extraordinary. After starting at their own 3-yard line on their last drive, they had moved all the way to the Philadelphia 32, with much of that due to Bryce Young making the sort of plays he’s suddenly making with regularity these days.
And then came the play, the one that decided this game with just under a minute to go.
Young, the first half of the pass, did everything right. He diagnosed the coverage, targeted the right receiver and then unleashed a beautiful throw to rookie wide receiver Xavier Legette that only Legette had a chance to catch.
Legette, the second half of this passing equation, had sold Philadelphia’s defense on a fake and now had two steps on everybody. The ball forced him to lay out a little, but he got both hands on it, pulled it into his chest and rolled into the end zone. Touchdown. … right?
But it wasn’t quite that simple, and Carolina wasn’t quite ready to beat one of the NFL’s best teams, just as it wasn’t ready to beat Kansas City and Tampa Bay in similar one-possession heartbreakers over the past two weeks.
It turns out that Legette didn’t secure the ball on his way down. It moved when he hit the ground. Officials ruled it incomplete and there wasn’t any “let’s go take a closer look” delay, either — although it wouldn’t have helped.
Because Legette, the 2024 first-round draft choice that the Panthers selected and paid to make exactly this sort of catch, dropped the ball.
So if you’re a Panthers fan today, that’s probably what you’re thinking about. How could Legette have possibly dropped that football?
Although if you’ve been watching Legette, you unfortunately know exactly how. The former South Carolina star has developed into an NFL rookie wide receiver who will drop a ball. Or two. Or three.
As Legette told reporters in Philadelphia about the catch: “I gotta make the ones when they matter.”
Or, as Panthers coach Dave Canales put it: “Absolutely, that’s a big play we’re counting on. And you know, (Legette) would be the first one to tell you he’s got to make that play.”
Yes, he does have to make it.
And that will be what people mostly remember about this game: Legette’s drop. Carolina never got close to the end zone again and lost the ball on downs. The defeat dropped the Panthers to 3-10, even though I don’t think anyone would dispute that this is a team that has turned the corner over the past month or so.
Philadelphia (11-2) had all it wanted from the Panthers. Maybe the Eagles would have come down and kicked a game-winning field goal anyway if Legette had scored on that potential go-ahead TD pass — they would have had about 45 seconds to do so and quarterback Jalen Hurts (3 total TDs) at the controls. But maybe not. Carolina can throw a scare into just about anybody at this point, and that would have been scary for the home team favored by almost two touchdowns.
And that brings me to the first half of the pass, which deserves a little more focus.
Do you know how unlikely it would have been for Young to lead a 97-yard TD drive against a team as good as the Eagles in the first two weeks of the season? Or all of last year? It would have been impossible.
But after seeing Young play the last several weeks, when he got the ball at his own 3 this time, it seemed at least 50-50 that he’d make it happen for Carolina. The scramble-drill, 31-yard throw he made to Legette (who caught that one) on the same drive was a play worthy of Patrick Mahomes. And Young also converted a fourth-and-7 to wide receiver Adam Thielen.
Now he wasn’t perfect. Young threw a couple into the dirt Sunday and had an overthrown interception — this wasn’t anywhere close to his best work. But even so, it was almost good enough. While Young’s ceiling has risen in the past few weeks, just as significantly, so has his floor.
And honestly, the quarterback position is much more important than wide receiver in the NFL. You can find more wide receivers. You can throw more draft picks and money at the position.
I still think Legette will eventually work out. But if he doesn’t? He could be replaced. Ask Jonathan Mingo, Terrace Marshall Jr. or the many others who came before him.
Quarterbacks, though? Some NFL teams go a decade or more without finding one. I thought earlier this year the Panthers had definitely whiffed on Young. But now he’s stringing together one game after another like this. Instead of going down on first contact, he’s making defenders look silly trying to chase him around in the pocket. He’s getting there, in other words.
So as nice as it would have been for Carolina and the Panthers if the second half of that pass had worked out, I’d argue that the first half was far more important in the grand scheme of things.
The Panthers have already clinched their seventh losing season in a row anyway. They aren’t going anywhere. All of this final month of the season is largely practice for 2025, and for draft position (Carolina would pick No. 4 overall if the 2025 NFL draft were today, according to the Tankathon website). At some point, they’re going to have to start winning close games against good teams. That’s the next corner to turn. But there’s hope at the moment.
And after so much despair, even after a highly competitive loss like this, Panther fans should feel pretty good.
This story was originally published December 9, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
