Low blow: Panthers got drilled by 49ers, and then Moehrig’s punch made it worse
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Panthers played terribly on offense Monday: 12 first downs and 9 points in 20-9 loss.
- Panthers safety Tre’von Moehrig delivered low blow to 49ers player, will face discipline.
- Panthers (6-6) still have a shot in NFC South, led by Tampa Bay (6-5).
At this rate, the Carolina Panthers may never be asked to play on “Monday Night Football” again.
Carolina’s 20-9 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Monday night was full of gaffes on the football side: Bryce Young throwing the first of his two interceptions on first-and-goal from the 49ers 1; Tetairoa McMillan dropping an easy third-down pass; missed tackles; deserved penalties.
And all that was before a massive cheap shot late in the game from Panthers safety Tre’von Moehrig, who reared back and punched San Francisco wide receiver Jauan Jennings below the belt and was caught on camera doing so. It was, quite literally, a low blow.
Jennings waited a few more minutes until the game was over, then sought out Moehrig and threw his own punch at the Panthers safety. It’s hard to blame him, although Moehrig defended himself later by saying Jennings had been an instigator with several instances of questionable behavior earlier in the game. (”He wanted to do his little dirty stuff, so it is what it is,” Moehrig said.)
When asked about Moehrig’s punch, Panthers coach Dave Canales promised: “I’ll get to the bottom of that.” And let’s hope the coach actually does something and announces what it is, too, rather than just let the NFL issue a fine and otherwise say, “We’re handling it internally.” This was the sort of public action that demands some sort of public consequence from the team.
So those were the Panthers on Monday night: outplayed, outcoached and looking outright cheap with the Moehrig punch, which you just can’t throw no matter what’s been going on during the game. They’ve lost by worse margins this season, but their reputation hasn’t taken any worse hits. This was “Keep Pounding” in all the wrong ways (and places).
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And yet, despite all that:
Carolina (6-6) wakes up Tuesday only a half-game out of the NFC South division lead, behind Tampa Bay (6-5).
The Buccaneers have problems of their own: They’ve lost three games in a row and quarterback Baker Mayfield has a non-throwing shoulder injury. While it’s not overly serious, Mayfield might not play Sunday.
The Panthers and Tampa Bay play twice in the season’s final three weeks — on Dec. 21 and Jan. 4 — and that is where the division will be decided.
Monday night made the playoff idea more difficult for Carolina, but certainly not impossible. They’re just not going to get a wildcard berth; be resigned to that, Panthers fans. This isn’t mathematically true yet, but Carolina’s only real chance to make the postseason for the first time since 2017 is going to be to win the division.
“We have to be able to take the lessons from this and move on quickly,” Canales told reporters in his postgame news conference. “We have everything still right in front of us. We have to understand that. But the only way we’re going to make it happen is by playing good, fundamental football.”
What the Panthers’ offense did Monday night was very far from that. It managed only 12 first downs and nine points. Young threw for just 169 yards, the ninth time in his 11 starts this season where he’s been under 200. His goal-line throw on first-and-goal from the 1, when he could have run for the score but instead tried to thread a pass in to tight end Mitchell Evans, was a horrible decision. Young took the blame for it, as he always does when he makes a mistake.
San Francisco (8-4) was supposed to have one of the NFL’s worst pass defenses and pass rushes, yet it harried Young all night. He hardly ever connected on any pass other than a screen, and he got no help from his receivers. Xavier Legette’s most notable play was an unforced error where he lost track of where he was, stepped out of bounds and then came back in to make a nice catch that was illegal.
If you’re noticing a pattern in Panthers losses in 2025, you’re not alone. This is a team with an anemic offense most of the time. Its good days are the anomaly, not the bad ones.
Here are the point totals for the Panthers in their six losses this season: 10, 22, 13, 9, 7 and 9. They’ve also managed to squeak out a couple of wins despite scoring only 16 and 13 points in those games. So, so often, they just can’t score — they have been under 20 points in five of their past six games. Even McMillan, who scored Carolina’s only touchdown Monday and has generally been a bright spot, now has six drops on the season.
Carolina’s defense tried its best to keep the Panthers in it. During a wild first-half stretch, the Panthers intercepted 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy on three consecutive possessions (two of them by Jaycee Horn, who would later leave the game with a concussion). Christian McCaffrey had 142 total yards, but they were workmanlike — it took CMC 31 touches to get there.
So the defense largely did its part. The special teams weren’t great, and the offense (which badly underused Rico Dowdle, who got only six carries and still managed 38 yards) was terrible. The Panthers looked nowhere near ready for prime time, and now they have the Los Angeles Rams — maybe the best current team in all of football — coming to Bank of America Stadium on Sunday.
They’ve still got it all in front of them, as Canales said. But if they play many more games like they did Monday, when the basics of the sport seemed so foreign, they won’t for long.
This story was originally published November 25, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
