For the first drive, it looked like Week 12 would be another chapter in the Saints domination book began earlier this season when they blew out the Panthers. A ten-play, 70-yard drive that mixed run and pass was capped off by a fourth down run by rookie sensation Alvin Kamara as he bowled over Shaq Thompson on his way through three Panthers into the endzone put the Saints ahead by seven, only the second time this season the Panthers had allowed a touchdown on their opponents’ opening drive. The first?
When Drew Brees and the Saints did it en route to a 34-13 drubbing at Bank of America Stadium in Week 3.
While the plot was slightly different, the ending was the same as the Saints defeated the Panthers 31-21 at the SuperDome to take sole possession of first place in the NFC South and seemingly send the Panthers into the race for the wild card as New Orleans moved to 9-3 with a one-game lead and the tiebreaker over the Panthers.
“We’re in the wild card, we control our destiny,” Kurt Coleman said about the 8-4 Panthers playoff situation and the next month, in which they’ll face the 10-2 Vikings, a returning Aaron Rodgers and finish the season with two division battles, the final one with Atlanta, who sits only a game behind the Panthers in the standings. “We’ve got to take care of our business.”
After the Panthers answered right back with a 75-yard touchdown drive of their own to tie it at seven, it appeared as if the Panthers might change the story, at least for the first quarter. After Jonathan Stewart, who began the game running strong but would only finish with 11 carries for 45 yards, plunged over the goal line to score the team’s first opening-drive touchdown of the season, the teams would play to a relative draw until a mistake-filled second quarter threatened to let the game get away from the Panthers.
“I felt like we came out, like you said, executed and we were efficient,” Cam Newton said after the game. “We just hit a lull right there, playing a type of team like this, moving forward, we’ve just to find ways to keep and stay on the attack and we didn’t do that today.”
In Week 3 after the Saints beat up the Panthers, Ron Rivera said the game came down to five or six plays that the Panthers didn’t make, and once again, the story was the same as there were three plays in quick succession that seemed as if they would cost the Panthers the game.
Mark Ingram exploded over right guard for 72 yards that had Mike Adams turning in circles to keep the running back in front of him to set up a three-yard plunge for a touchdown to put them up seven with three minutes gone in the second quarter.
“We just have to do our job across the board. Everybody. I’ve got to get him down,” Adams said of the bruising Ingram. “I’ve just got to get him down; we just have got to play better as a whole.”
After a three-and-out for the Panthers, punter Michael Palardy couldn’t get off a punt on an odd play in which Palardy bobbled the snap and panicked as the Saints rush closed in on him and gave the ball to the Saints with a short field only 31 yards from the end zone. Palardy, who has been having an excellent season, said after the game that the snap was good and he took full responsibility for the bobble. Even with the short field, just three plays later as the Panthers appeared to stop the Saints on third down to get off the field and force a field goal, Julius Peppers was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to extend a Saints drive that would end with a Michael Thomas touchdown to put the Saints up 21-7 and throw all the momentum onto the Saints sideline.
“I thought it was pretty ticky-tack,” Peppers said about the penalty. “To be honest with you, I thought it was bullshit. Regardless, at the end of the day you can hurt your team like that.” Peppers, who also said that he felt Ingram committed a false start on his 72-yard run, started in place of the suspended Charles Johnson and was credited with three combined tackles.
The Panthers let Mark Ingram get loose in the open field…
And they paid for it. #CARvsNO pic.twitter.com/6QEj8xdSSO
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) December 3, 2017
After the Panthers went three-and-out again, the Saints offense appeared to pick up where it left off until Mike Adams used a classic “Peanut Punch” to force tight end Josh Hill to fumble gave the Panthers the ball back on the Saints side of the field. Four plays later, Cam Newton found a wide open Christian McCaffrey all alone along the left sidelines, who ran the short pass 21 yards for the touchdown; McCaffrey would finish with 49 total yards but only 16 rushing.
Newton, who was accurate all day after only completing 39% of his passes last week against the Jets, found tough sledding for much of the day as his receivers failed to get separation for most of the game. The injuries among the Panthers pass-catchers may be catching up with them as the quarterback, missing his top target Greg Olsen as well as rookie wide receiver Curtis Samuel, would only finish with 183 yards passing while completing 63% of his passes.
The Panthers number one wide receiver Devin Funchess, who appeared to break out last week with 108 yards on 12 targets last week at the Jets would finish with only four grabs for sixty yards and only one catch through three quarters. His 24-yard touchdown would come with four minutes left and the Panthers down by 17; he would also make a crucial mental error in the fourth quarter with the Panthers threatening in the red zone down 14 and plenty of time to make a comeback as he ran an out route that allowed him to make a catch near the sidelines on fourth-and-six that went for only five yards and gave the ball back to the Saints. Funchess said after the game that he did not gain enough depth on his route and said that he made a mistake, adding that he “made a lot of mistakes. I can’t do that, as the guy that I am. (We) just have to get back in the lab and get back to it.
The defense, which had come into the game as the second-best in the NFL, played like anything but as they gave up 246 yards in the first half alone after coming into the game allowing 288 yards each week thus far. The Saints would finish with 400 total yards exactly; multiple missed tackles, an issue that plagued the Panthers in their Week 3 loss as well, would allow multiple big plays from Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, who combined for over 200 yards from scrimmage for the fifth straight game. Drew Brees, who has been turned by the duo of Kamara and Ingram from a gunslinger into a game manager, would have 269 yards and a score with a 73.5 completion percentage. Kamara, who was as electrifying as advertised, would contribute 126 total yards as Ingram accounted for 122.
The w
ords that echoed through the Panthers locker room after the game was that the players didn’t do their job, a phrase said by players from all three phases of the game: offense, defense and special teams. Mistakes, both mental and physical cost the team this game just as it did in Week 3. The mistakes, from allowing Ingram to rumble for a long run when the Panthers are lined up in an eight-man front to a third down conversion that is nullified by a face mask penalty, added up to a costly loss to a Panthers team that needed a win to keep pace in what is turning out to be a stacked NFC.
“I mean, we lost,” said Trai Turner. “It didn’t come out the way we wanted to, so we didn’t do our job.”
Additional Notes
- Ryan Kalil and Greg Olsen were both inactive. Christian McCaffrey, Thomas Davis, and Shaq Thompson were all active after being listed as questionable on the injury report. Both players have only been active for three games this season, Kalil tweaked his neck before the Week 2 game vs. Buffalo and Olsen spent eight weeks on injured reserve with a broken foot suffered in the same game.
- When Alvin Kamara scored on the first drive, it was his sixth straight game with a touchdown.
- Left tackle Matt Kalil played very well on the first drive of the game, but struggled to contain Cam Jordan for much of the game, giving up multiple pressures and committing two face mask penalties.
- Drew Brees moved past Peyton Manning into second place with his 6,126th completion in the fourth quarter, a 32-yard dagger to Michael Thomas along the sidelines.
- The Panthers appeared to recover an onside kick after scoring a touchdown to cut the lead to 10 with less than four minutes left as Devin Funchess dove to keep the ball inbounds but was ruled out of bounds upon review to give the ball back to the Saints.
