There were many plays that cost the Carolina Panthers the game in New Orleans yesterday. The bobbled Michael Palardy punt that gave the Saints a short field in a one possession game. The long pass to Damiere Byrd that was slightly underthrown and broken up by Ken Crawley. The Alvin Kamara fourth-down conversion in which he avoided not only Shaq Thompson, but Wes Horton and Luke Kuechly as well. Those three plays along with countless others turned the Panthers from NFC South Champion hopefuls into wild card contenders when they lost 31-21 in New Orleans, but one that seemed most confusing not just at the time but after the game happened on the third play of the second half.
The Panthers had some momentum coming out of halftime, having trimmed the Saints lead to seven at 21-14 after Mike Adams forced tight end Josh Hill to fumble and three plays later Cam Newton found a wide open Christian McCaffrey all alone on the left side of the field for a 21-yard catch-and-run touchdown. With the second-half kickoff coming their way only down a score after being outplayed for much of the second quarter and making multiple errors, the Panthers turned a second down eight-yard run from Jonathan Stewart into a third-and-short.
And then this happened.
“Well, he jumped offsides but he has time to get back into the neutral zone,” right tackle Daryl Williams told The Riot Report after the game. “I would’ve moved, but I thought, since he wasn’t over me, I thought I couldn’t move. But Ryan Kalil explained the rule so…if I could have went back in time, I would have moved.”
“If he would have jumped and I would have stepped in front of him, then it would have been a flag.”
While it’s true that movement from Williams would have drawn a flag, it was actually tight end Chris Manhertz’s movement, who said after the game that he was confused why the flag wasn’t thrown as well, that should have drawn the flag.
According to NFL rules, it is considered a neutral zone infraction when “a defender enters the neutral zone prior to the snap, causing the offensive player(s) in close proximity (including a quarterback who is under center) to react (move) immediately to protect himself (themselves) against impending contact; officials are to blow their whistles immediately. If there is no immediate reaction by the offensive player(s) in close proximity, and the defensive player returns to a legal position prior to the snap without contacting an opponent, there is no foul.”
When the ball was snapped, A.J. Klein came unblocked through the gap between guard and center for an easy shot at Cam Newton, sacking the quarterback for a 13-yard loss, turning what would have been a first down via penalty into a punting situation; while the uncalled penalty was frustrating, Williams was insistent that the sack had nothing to do with the presnap confusion, though Ron Rivera was not as convinced.
“Unfortunately, it could have. I’m not saying it did or didn’t,” Rivera said after the game. “But unfortunately, it could have. But that’s ball. They are going to make calls and miss calls.”
The Saints would get the ball back, march 67 yards in six plays for a touchdown, go up two scores and the Panthers would never get closer than the final margin. Julius Peppers thought there were multiple calls missed in the game; aside from calling his second-quarter unsportsmanlike conduct penalty “ticky-tack”, the normally soft-spoken defensive end was seen pleading his case with the referees on the previous possession after Mark Ingram’s 72-yard run.
I asked Peppers in the locker room why he was so animated with the referees after that play. His answer was short; he still seemed angry about it. “He false started. Ingram. You didn’t see it?”
I did not, and neither did the refs.
A missed penalty didn’t cost the Panthers the game, it’s never one play that does.
But it didn’t help.
-All video clips courtesy of NFL.com
