Panthers aren’t ready to take down Brees, Saints. But they’re not supposed to be — yet
OK, let’s say Joey Slye made that 65-yard field goal — the one he missed by an eyelash in New Orleans’ 27-24 win over Carolina on Sunday.
Do you know what would have happened next, Panthers fans? In your hearts, I think you do. There would have still been almost two minutes left. Drew Brees would have led the Saints down the field, and they would have scored to win anyway.
Know why?
Because the Saints, until proven otherwise, are the NFC South’s standard. They have gone 13-3, 13-3 and 11-5 over the past three seasons. They still win games like Sunday’s — when they only got to have 3,000 people in the Superdome and Brees’ top two receivers were out.
The Panthers aren’t there yet. They can hang in there with New Orleans, or with Tampa Bay, but they can’t quite beat them. Sunday was more evidence of that — another “woulda-coulda-shoulda” game that Brees still was probably going to find a way to win, one way or another.
So there’s that: The Panthers aren’t quite ready to win a game like that against the three-time defending NFC South champ.
But there’s also this.
Before we get bogged too far down in Sunday’s minutiae — the sack that couldn’t be taken but was or the unveiling of Matt Rhule’s Carolina blue game day smock that made him look like a friendly high school art-teacher — let’s step back for a minute.
These Carolina Panthers, now 3-4, are way more interesting than you or I probably expected.
No, they aren’t going to the playoffs in 2020. Yes, they lost again. Yes, they need another defense-heavy draft in 2021 to provide some more reinforcements.
But this was a three-point loss, against a likely playoff team, on the road and decided in the last two minutes.
So before you get too heated about everything that went wrong Sunday, let’s remember that the Panthers went 0-8 in the last half of the 2019 season. And they lost games by scores like 29-3, 40-20, 38-6 and 42-10.
This, at least, was close. This, at least, was progress.
The 2020 Panthers have played seven games now, and five of them have been decided by seven points or less. They no longer are getting blown out every other week.
As bad as the Panthers defense was on third down — allowing New Orleans to convert a remarkable 12 of 14 times — it somehow also only allowed six second-half points.
As bad as Carolina’s running game was — 14 carries for 37 yards?! — the Panthers moved the ball efficiently through the air. Teddy Bridgewater matched Brees throw for throw until the final two minutes, when Bridgewater made the wrong decision against a heavy rush and took an 8-yard sack.
That, in turn, made Slye’s field-goal attempt a shade too long — it would have set an NFL record had it gone through.
But again, I still feel like Brees would have beaten the Panthers at the end, because that Carolina defense wasn’t going to get off the field unless Brian Burns had another strip-sack. (In a similar vein, I’ve always contended that John Kasay’s snap-hook of a Super Bowl kickoff out of bounds in 2004 was not the disaster people think it was, because Tom Brady was about to lead New England on a game-winning drive even if he started from his own 2. But I digress.)
I’m making one larger point here, one easy to miss when you start diagramming every third-down play the Saints converted.
The Panthers — who play again Thursday night, at home against Atlanta — had a mountain to climb after this bizarre offseason.
They are nowhere near the top. But it looks to me like they have finally established a respectable base camp.
Maybe they will never reach the summit at all. But games like Sunday’s, despite the result, mean that in a year or two the Panthers are going to have a chance.
This story was originally published October 25, 2020 at 6:37 PM.
