Greg Olsen would have bet his life the Panthers were going to score.
When the Panthers got the ball back at their own 16-yard line with 3:15 on the clock, down six points after climbing back from a 17 point first half deficit, they immediately began driving downfield, picking up 36 yards on three plays before the two minute warning.
The reason Olsen felt so confident was the Panthers preceding nine-play, 75 yard drive that only took just over four minutes to drive for a score to pull the Panthers within a score at 20-17 – with that kind of momentum, Olsen felt as if the touchdown was a foregone conclusion.
“I felt really good about it, especially coming off the momentum of the drive prior,” said Olsen, who played all but one snap in the game just five weeks after fracturing a bone in his foot. “It, in essence, was the exact same thing. We kind of had a little bit more urgency on the [final] drive just considering the time, but, on the drive before – it was a four minute drive or so, pretty smoothly – we got off to a great start; [the yards] started piling up there.”
“We were taking chunks at a time.”
After a catch along the sidelines that was originally called complete but overruled after a booth challenge – Olsen thinks if they hadn’t been under two minutes, a challenge might not have been initiated before the Panthers hurried up to run the next play – completions to DJ Moore, Christian McCaffrey and Torrey Smith brought the Panthers to third-and-1 just outside the red zone. A Cam Newton sneak and a short angle route by Christian McCaffrey, and the Panthers appeared to be in good shape at the Redskins’ 16 yard line with 47 seconds left.
Cam Newton has led 16 game-winning drives in his career, including three in 2017 and one just last week against the New York Giants that ended with Graham Gano’s 63-yard game-winner – Newton is no stranger to pressure situations, which led to a calmness in the huddle, even in a hostile environment and a pressure situation.
“He’s cool, man,” left tackle Chris Clark said about Newton – Clark has played with 10 starting quarterbacks in his ten-year career, including Peyton Manning, so he knows a little something about quarterbacks. “Cool, calm and collected – he’s definitely a leader; you appreciate a guy like that.”
But ultimately, the Panthers would go no further; three consecutive incompletions, targeting three different pass catchers – McCaffrey, Funchess and Wright – would end the game for the Panthers. Ron Rivera isn’t second guessing the plays chosen.
“The play calls give the quarterbacks some options and he’ll go through his progression,” said Rivera. “So as we go through it, part of it is execution and maybe we could have made a different call, but those plays had opportunities – when you get a chance to watch the tape, you’ll see them.”
Here’s one:
Cam Newton puts it just out of reach of Christian McCaffrey, who had a step on safety Montae Nicholson – the Panthers wouldn’t get a better shot at scoring in that series, a pass to a covered Devin Funchess wasn’t close and a pass for Jarius Wright sailed out of bounds, even though Wright argued after the game that he was held.
“I’d be lying if that wasn’t disappointing,” said Olsen. “You break the huddle with second-and-5 inside the opponents 20 when you’ve been moving the ball pretty well, it’s tough – you think you’re in pretty good shape to win the game.”
Ultimately, the Panthers can’t less this adversity define them – a tough loss against a tough opponent on the road isn’t a hard pill to swallow – it’s the circumstances of the three first-half turnovers that put them there that are.
“If we take advantage of the opportunity to learn and grow from it, we’ve got a chance to take a step forward. If we don’t, we’ll get beat again,” said Rivera, “When you look at games like this, losing isn’t going define us.”
“How we handle it, how we come out next week, that’s what is going to define us.”
There is one area that defines great coaching and poor coaching. That is managing a clock at the end of a game.
There was too much time left with the Redskins holding 3 timeouts. The back to back shots at the endzone, even if they work, is bad strategizing.
Best case scenario there is Carolina goes up by 1 or 2. The Redskins now have 40 seconds and 3 timeouts to get into field goal range with a kicker who was great all afternoon.
The Patriots beat the Chiefs by using strategy. They let the Chiefs score quickly at the end. Even though KC went ahead, there was still 3 minutes left and several timeouts. And sure as the sun, the Patriots win as time expires.
Those passes were inexcusable. You need 5 yards for a first down. Run. The. Ball. Play chicken with Washington and see if you can get them to burn one of their timeouts on your drive.
You run twice, get the first down. Then you should still have 15 to 20 seconds and at least one timeout. That’s three shots at the endzone and leaving nothing for your opponent.
Ron Rivera and Norv Turner should be fired.