Dirty Birds: Carolina Panthers can’t escape Atlanta, fall to 14-1

The Carolina Panthers could very well be 15-0 rather than 14-1 if the defense would have gotten the Falcons off the field on third down on Sunday.

In the Panthers’ 20-13 loss, Carolina pushed the Falcons (8-7) to third down 15 times, and 10 times the home team got the first down to extend drives.

“That was probably our biggest disappointment,” Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. “We had some good third-and-long situations and did not get to the quarterback.”

On first and second downs, Carolina’s defense did what you have to do by stopping the run and getting the Falcons behind the chains. Atlanta had an average third-down distance of more than 8 yards.

But they converted nine tries into first downs and another one with an unnecessary roughness penalty.

Now the Panthers must treat next week’s regular season finale against Tampa Bay as a must win. With the Arizona victory on Sunday night, Carolina has still not clinched the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC playoffs.

The Panthers need to win or have the Cardinals lose next week in order to get the No. 1 seed. The tiebreaker between two 14-2 teams would go to Arizona because of their record in NFC play.

In that case, there should be no talk this week about resting starters going into the playoffs.

“There’s a game next week, right?” quarterback Cam Newton said when asked if starters should play against Tampa Bay.

Three who mattered

Cam Newton: The frontrunner for the MVP couldn’t muster his fifth fourth quarter comeback of the season. He had an average day for the season he’s had.

Kawann Short: The Pro Bowl-bound defensive tackle followed up his two-sack day against Atlanta in Week 14 with another two-sack performance on Sunday.

Julio Jones: After three games of being held mostly in check by Josh Norman, Jones got the better of Norman on the day. He caught at least five passes on Norman for 80 yards, though Norman did have one pass breakup. Jones finished with nine catches for 178 yards and a touchdown.

Observations

▪  After his rushing touchdown in the first quarter, Newton took the ball, cradled it and rocked it like a baby. Asked after the game if it had any significance, Newton said, “No, sir. And I’m going to leave it at that.”

▪  Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan took a big hit from Kurt Coleman to the area of his right hip and ribs in the first quarter and it seemed to bother him throughout the game. Thomas Davis laid a hit on him in the third quarter that caused Ryan to get up slowly.

▪  Shayne Graham appeared to badly mishit his 43-yard field-goal attempt in the third quarter. Star Lotulelei got his hand up in the middle of the line and Norman sped around the corner, but no Panthers’ player appeared to get a hand on it.

▪  Philly Brown saved his quarterback from an interception in the second quarter. Newton threw a deep pass on third down that Phillip Adams had in his grasp, but before he got his second foot down Brown knocked the ball away to make it incomplete.

▪  Jones’ 70-yard touchdown catch is as good as you’ll see. He went up vertically and grabbed the ball on top of Luke Kuechly and ran the rest of the way for the touchdown.

Worth mentioning

▪  Running back Fozzy Whittaker left the game in the fourth quarter with a right ankle injury. Depending on how he heals, that could make for an interesting decision at running back next week.

▪  Rivera is 9-of-13 on challenges this year after getting a second-quarter call overturned to get the first down on a Newton rush. Rivera is 15-of-32 all-time on challenges.

▪  Carolina’s offense recorded 155 rushing yards, marking the 26th consecutive game with 100 or more rushing yards. It’s the longest streak in the league since the Steelers did it in 43 straight games between 1974-77.

They said it

“We battled really hard all day. It wasn’t perfect, but we knew this was the kind of game it was going to be. We were happy to get it done today.” – Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.

“We picked a bad day to have a bad day. We knew this was their Super Bowl. We knew that their whole season came down to today.” – Greg Olsen.

“We certainly viewed this game as a measuring stick for us. I wanted to really see how we’d respond after our ball game up there a couple of weeks ago, and we certainly did.” – Falcons coach Dan Quinn.

“We are not perfect, and that is the biggest thing.” – Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly on the biggest takeaway from the game.

P@nthers

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Dirty Birds: Carolina Panthers can’t escape Atlanta, fall to 14-1."