Bills 31, Panthers 14: Instant reaction as Carolina loses kicker, fourth straight game

First, the Carolina Panthers lost their kicker during pregame warmups Sunday.

Then they compounded that oddity with a few of their biggest mistakes of the season. All of that added up to their fourth straight overall loss, as Buffalo whipped the Panthers, 31-14, in Orchard Park, N.Y.

Carolina compensated pretty well for the loss of Zane Gonzalez, the only kicker on the roster, when Gonzalez hurt his quad in pregame warmups and collapsed to the ground. After a blooper-filled ad hoc tryout that included wide receiver Brandon Zylstra, backup quarterback P.J. Walker and punter Lachlan Edwards all trying field goals, the Panthers settled on Zylstra for kickoffs — he squibbed them to about the 15 each time — and never tried a field goal or extra point.

But although the Panthers showed some resilience, had a good rushing offense and didn’t turn the ball over for the first 59 minutes, they made some badly timed mistakes that — along with the rifle arm of Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen, who had three TD passes — contributed to the loss.

Among the Panthers’ worst mistakes:

▪ In the second quarter, with DJ Moore 5 yards behind the Buffalo defense, Cam Newton badly underthrew a deep ball for what should have been a touchdown of 50-plus yards. Instead of six points, though, it was a harmless incompletion.

▪ After Carolina’s defense had stopped the Bills on third down in the third quarter, several Bills players ended up near the Panther sideline. Defensive lineman Bravvion Roy ended up pushing one of them, and although the foul was ticky-tack and Panther head coach Matt Rhule had gotten bumped at some point by a Bills player, Roy can’t put his team in that position. Rhule later called it a “stupid” and “undisciplined” penalty. Buffalo, given a second chance, drove down the field to score.

▪ On a fourth-and-1 around midfield early in the game, Carolina instead tried to throw a flanker screen to Robby Anderson.

Rhule would say later this was Newton’s fault. The play was a zone-read, where Newton was supposed to either hand the ball off or take off himself, with the screen a third option if Newton thought he was going to get hit on a blitz. Rhule said Buffalo was blitzing, but that blitz was going to be picked up, and Newton would have had a first down had he stuck with the run play. Instead, Newton skittered a throw out of bounds to a closely-covered Anderson.

Carolina also had a decent share of good plays. Defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos had 2.5 sacks and a forced fumble. Safety Jeremy Chinn made an acrobatic interception. Newton ran the ball well several times, Anderson flashed and Ameer Abdullah scored on a 23-yard TD pass from Newton. And Newton showed great toughness as he got battered by a Bills defense that often overwhelmed the Panthers’ offensive line.

But it wasn’t enough. Buffalo (8-6) never trailed, as the Bills stayed in the hunt for the AFC playoffs and Carolina stayed in the hunt for a top 2022 NFL draft pick.

No P.J. Walker for Panthers

Although Rhule said he planned to work backup quarterback Walker in for Carolina as he had the week before, that never happened. Newton played the entire game for Carolina, even when the team was down 17 points in the final two minutes. It was on that drive he turned the ball over for the first time, throwing an interception to former Panther A.J. Klein.

Newton is 0-12 over his past 12 starts for Carolina, dating back to his first stint with the team. He ended up 18 for 38 for 156 yards, with one TD and one interception throwing the ball. He ran the ball 15 times for 71 yards and a score, which meant he now has a rushing TD for the Panthers in five consecutive games.

Other notes:

▪ The Panthers remain the only team in the NFL not to allow an opening-score touchdown on defense on the opponent’s first drive. The Carolina defense traditionally gets off to a fast start and then too often wears down and that was also the pattern Sunday, as Carolina sent the Bills off on a three-and-out on their first possession that included a sack of Josh Allen.

▪ The Panthers sure could have used former teammate Efe Obada, who had two thunderous sacks on the same drive in the fourth quarter.

▪ On the last play of that first drive, a combined sack by Yetur Gross-Matos and Haason Reddick forced Allen to fumble. Brian Burns went for the scoop-and-score and missed it. Buffalo recovered instead, costing Carolina about 40 yards in field position (Buffalo had to punt anyway). But I was OK with the idea of scoop-and-score — it’s so hard to score on Buffalo’s defense that it was worth the risk.

▪ When is the last time the Panthers didn’t take an early timeout for some reason? They did so in both halves again in this game.

▪ Chinn made a fantastic interception of Allen in the second quarter, leaping high to pick off a ball intended for Stefon Diggs (who also scored during the game). It was the first interception for Chinn this season and the second of his career. The pick set up Carolina’s first TD — a 4-yard Newton run.

▪ Brian Burns had a bad penalty late in the second quarter, hitting Allen late for a roughing-the-passer call that could have easily been avoided if he had pulled up. It wasn’t smart. Gross-Matos also had a roughing-the-passer penalty.

▪ Buffalo offensive tackle Spencer Brown sometimes seemed to be trying to keep the Panthers in the game all by himself, as he drew an astonishing five penalty flags before getting pulled early in the fourth quarter.

This story was originally published December 19, 2021 at 4:14 PM.

Scott Fowler

The Charlotte Observer

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Columnist Scott Fowler has written for The Charlotte Observer since 1994 and has earned 26 APSE awards for his sportswriting. He hosted The Observer’s podcast “Carruth,” which Sports Illustrated once named “Podcast of the Year.” Fowler also conceived and hosted the online series and podcast “Sports Legends of the Carolinas,” which featured 1-on-1 interviews with NC and SC sports icons and was turned into a book. He occasionally writes about non-sports subjects, such as the 5-part series “9/11/74,” which chronicled the forgotten plane crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 in Charlotte on Sept. 11, 1974. Support my work with a digital subscription