Delayed Game
After Luke Kuechly forced his second fumble of the game on the first play of the second half, the Panthers began a third-quarter drive tied at 17 on the Browns 32-yard line; a pass to McCaffrey that lost them eight yards and a Newton scramble set up a third-and-13; Newton threw up the seam to a wide-open Devin Funchess – who wasn’t even looking.
“That was my bad,” said Funchess. “That was my miscommunication on the one play that I kept going straight. That was my bad on the miscommunication. I was trying to do too much. I was trying to get everybody lined up and forgot the main part of it.”
Funchess, who hasn’t been the same since his drop-filled day in Detroit, had zero catches on only three targets – his final target was the interception that sealed the game. On the ensuing play, the Panthers lined up for a Chandler Catanzaro – signed this week to spell an ailing Graham Gano – 52-yard field goal; Catanzaro was perfect in his career in Cleveland and had made a 59-yarder to beat the Browns earlier when he was rostered in Tampa Bay.
And the Panthers intentionally took a delay of game as they attempted to draw the Browns offsides.
“We were trying to get them to jump offside,” said Rivera. “We were just out of range and unfortunately we ran out of time. We did get them to jump, but the clock had expired. We were trying to get a jump, get five yards, and then we would be in field goal range. We were outside the range.”
A turnover on the Browns side of the field turns into zero points – the next drive would be more of the same as the Panthers would, for the second time in two weeks, have a touchdown wiped out by a holding penalty from one of their starting tackles. Both of those touchdowns would be replaced by field goals.
It probably would have been nice to have four extra points when the Panthers were facing fourth-and-goal inside the five-yard line at the two minute warning.
“I just feel we are not putting a good product on the field,” defensive end Julius Peppers said. “We felt like we were going to win today. We felt like we were going to win last week. We feel like we are going to win every game. It is not for a lack of confidence.”
“It’s just a lack of execution.”
You could also call those mistakes.
