In a game where their defense had allowed Jared Cook and Michael Thomas to have their way with the secondary, Alvin Kamara and Latavius Murray to break off chunk plays in the run game, had missed two extra points and had a punt bounce off one of their gunners downfield, not to mention converted only 38% of their third downs, they still had a chance to win.
In a game where they fell down by two scores, only to claw their way back and then allow the Saints to put them in another 13 point hole only to scrap back to even the score in the fourth quarter, it almost happened. Even after faltering inside the red zone with eight plays from inside the Saints 16-yard line – and four inside the five – all failing to get into the end zone on the final drive, it still seemed like it might work out.
But then, it didn’t.
“Make no mistake about it,” said Greg Olsen after the Panthers lost their fourth game in the past five weeks. “That was tough.”
Joey Slye missed a 28-yard field goal – a kick that ended a streak of 233 consecutive made field goals by NFL kickers at that distance or shorter – and the Panthers were left in their locker room talking about how hard they played only to fall short for yet another game. It’s not a four-score loss to the 49ers or Falcons, but that doesn’t make it any easier or harder – a loss is a loss and they’ve been piling up for the Panthers, so much so that they are now almost certainly not going to make the playoffs and questions will be raised about when it’s time to start taking a look at some of the younger members of the roster.
Not to mention questions about whether people are going to be losing their jobs sooner rather than later. Playing hard isn’t enough when you lose in the NFL.
“It’s never an effort issue for us, it’s an execution issue,” said Christian McCaffrey, whose incredible season – he leads the league in total touchdowns and had yet another game with a score through both the air and on the ground – is being wasted on what will likely be a lost season in Carolina.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” said Kyle Allen, who played his second excellent game in the Superdome with three touchdowns and exhibited better pocket awareness and touch on his deep ball than he’s shown all season. “It does not matter how you play. At the end of the day when they look back on the season it’s going to be a loss.”
“There’s going to be no asterisk saying they almost won. It’s a loss.”
Slye, who has now missed four extra points and is among the bottom of the league in terms of field goal percentage after missing his seventh kick of the season, heaped the blame on himself after the game after pushing his kick wide right.
“If I’m pushing right, that means I’m usually planting a little deep – so just the speed of the ball, I’ve got to make sure my timing’s right,” said the rookie kicker. “I’ve got to be better than that.”
“With the team and where we’re going right now, I feel like a lot of people’s backs were on the wall and I wanted to be a part of a great win here – I feel terrible.”
But the rest of the team tried to pick him up – at least as much as you can when you miss three kicks and your team loses by three points.
“You play this game long enough, you’re going to have some tough days,” said Olsen, who had five catches for 44 yards. “Unfortunately for the kicker, I mean, for the rest of us, we all have bad plays – I had more than three bad plays like he did, the [difference] is I had 70 [snaps]. That’s the unfortunate reality of some of those positions is it’s their only opportunities – but I feel for him. He works hard, he’s a good kid.”
“He’s got to keep battling, though. He can’t let this define him – he’s too young. He’s got a long career ahead of him, he’s talented, he’s got to just get through it, like we’ve all had to get through tough moments in our careers when things didn’t go our way; he’s not unique from that standpoint. We’ve all had those days.”
“It’s a tough business, man. This is tough stuff.”
For a moment, it appeared that the Panthers – and Slye – would find reprieve in the laundry tossed by the refs, who had whistled the Saints already for a dozen penalties that accounted for more yardage than the Panthers accumulated in the rushing game. But the officials, who had thrown a flag after Marcus Davenport lept over long snapper JJ Jansen and might have blocked the kick had it been straight on instead of wide right, rescinded their flag and gave the ball back to the Saints.
Jansen said he wanted to take a look at the film, but ultimately the call – which CBS analyst Gene Steratore said he believed to be correct – was a judgement call.
“One of the officials said that he pulled me down, a different official said that he pushed me down,” said Jansen. “That was the difference – they’re allowed to push, but they’re not allowed to pull. Two judgements calls and they deliberated and came to the conclusion that they did.”
Even after a missed field goal that was shorter than an extra point attempt, the Panthers still could have had a chance to win if they had been able to stop Brees and the Saints, who got the ball back with 1:56 on the clock and a single timeout. But even after a Brian Burns sack started the defense in the right direction, they allowed the Saints to march down the field for the game-winning field goal, converting two third downs in the process.
Brees found Alvin Kamara on 3rd-and-2 for four yards and then a 3rd-and-6 with 37 seconds left – after the Saints had called their final timeout at their own 36-yard line – became the biggest play of the game when James Bradberry stumbled guarding Michael Thomas, who leads the league in both receptions and receiving yards, and Thomas found himself open for a 24-yard gain.
“He’s going to take it very hard,” Rivera said about Bradberry. “It’s unfortunate that he slipped a little bit and gave up the opportunity; but he fought and played and I’ll tell you right now that without James playing the way he did, it could have been different.”
The Panthers #1 corner, the man tasked with following around the opponent’s best player week after week, sat at his locker room in full uniform as the media flitted around him, interviewing his teammates while they stripped for the shower and starting packing their bags to head back to Charlotte.
He, like the rest of his teammates, had given maximum effort – they just hadn’t executed. And lost.
“We’re way better than what we’re showing. It’s as simple as that,” said Gerald McCoy. “I know people say you are what your record shows, but we are better than what we’re showing. I know that for sure.”
“We’ve just got to be better.”
