Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera: Blocked FG came out low

What Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera initially believed to be a problem with his field-goal protection turned out to be a mistake by the kicker.

In his Monday news conference following a win against the Texans, Rivera said the 52-yard field-goal attempt that was blocked late in the game was on kicker Graham Gano and not the line.

“The truth of the matter is the ball came out just a little bit low from the kicker,” Rivera said. “He hit it really well but it was a little bit low because it was a longer kick. I don’t think he needed to drive it as hard as he did. He could have gotten a little more air.

“Again he’s kicking the ball extremely well and doing the things that we need him to do and those are things we are going to work on and get better at.”

Rivera placed the blame on the line after the game, which was the second consecutive game with a field goal blocked in the fourth quarter. But upon watching the tape, Rivera liked the protection and said the Texans timed their jump well to be a hand on the ball.

The decision to kick the field goal rather than punt was one of playing to win rather than playing not to lose. If Carolina made the field goal, the Panthers would have been up by 10 points with less than three minutes to play.

The Panthers then could have kicked the ball out of the end zone and forced the Texans to go 80 yards for a touchdown, then recover the ensuing onside kick and get in position for a field goal to tie the game.

Instead, the missed field-goal attempt gave the Texans’ offense, which had been struggling for most of the day, the ball at the 43-yard line. Ultimately, the defense held up and kept Houston out of the end zone.

“We could have punted it, something bad could have happened there. We could have tried to go for it and something bad could have happened there,” Rivera said. “To me, that was the decision was to try to make it a two-score (game) and with the amount of time they had, it would have played nicely into our hands.”

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera: Blocked FG came out low."