Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Carolina Panthers and the Miami Dolphins walked into a bar, but neither of them cleared it because they were both bad teams. While we wait to hear of Mike McDaniels is losing his job for losing to Bryce Young, let’s make one thing clear across the Panthers fandom:
Yesterday was every kind of fun we’ve been hoping for this season.
The Panthers aren’t going to be good this season, but maybe they can be fun sometimes. That’s a heck of a lot better than they’ve been in years.
A bunch of rookies yesterday stepped up and made us all think that there is something to this new scouting and analytics staff that Dan Morgan has assembled. That means hope not just for the current roster but also for the current roster building process.
Maybe every leader isn’t going to be a long term answer for this franchise, but maybe we don’t have to hate every second of this season while pining for better days. That feels just a little bit better if we also have hope for the future.
After last week, that’s a very optimistic take on the season.
What I had extremely mixed feelings about
Yes, Young was bad. Yes, he probably puts a ceiling on how competitive the Panthers can be while he is under center. His two turnovers in the first half were inexcusable and embarrassing. But we also have to acknowledge that he was part of the team coming back. He made as many impressive throws as he did bone-headed decisions. There is more late career Jake Delhomme in the kid than we were led to believe.
The Dolphins scored 14 of their 24 points off of two maddening Young turnovers, including a fumble that was panic-induced and had nothing to do with contact from an opposing defender. The first twenty or so minutes of the game looked like we were going to be watching peak Bad Bryce. Then he pulled it together. He was efficient and careful, if not exactly amazing. That was enough for the Panthers to dig themselves out of a 17-0 hole and ultimately win the game. Young hasn’t shown much this season, but that’s not nothing either.
Whether or not Young is here next year may depend more on the Panthers draft position and evaluation of the 2026 crop of quarterbacks than on anything else he does on the field this season. I’m just glad to know that the Magic 8 ball he shakes before every snap does have some good results that can show up. I’ll take it for now.
Short yardage playcalling
Dave Canales finally committed to the run. Hooray. Pigs apparently can fly. The result from this game should provide several big teachable, light bulb moments for the young head coach. That goes not just for Rico Dowdle providing the engine for a capable offense, but also for Canales’ reflection on the things that didn’t work.
Multiple drives stalled out because Canales called passing plays out of empty backfields on third and short. These resulted in incomplete passes or the fan-favorite third down throw aways two seconds after the snap. The Panthers banged up offensive line couldn’t protect Young under such obvious, high stakes circumstances and the Panthers’ comeback was slowed as a result.
Few, if any, teams will be as terrible against the run as the Dolphins. Canales needs to not waste those opportunities in the future with such a basic tactical error. I don’t care how the play is designed, no defensive coordinator in the league is going to be upset about seeing an empty backfield on third & 2. That’s worth reflecting on.
McMillan is still it. There are some rookie kinks to work out, but he’s going to be everything we hoped for and more. The more might realistically be an ability to draw deep pass interference penalties at least once a game.
XL looked miles better. Maybe his hamstring was really bothering him through the first couple of weeks. Maybe he just needed a kick in the pants to get his head in the game this season. Either way, an accurate quarterback will give him the chance to develop into a fantastic number two receiver in this offense.
Nobody gets singled out here. There were plenty of mistakes, but the unit as a whole held an offense with a bevy of playmakers to 229 yards passing and only 19 yards rushing. The linebacker play was moderately improved and/or disguised and the rookies continued to look like significant contributors. Shoutouts go to Nic Scourton, Princely Umanmielen, and Lathan Ransom for being in the position to make several plays yesterday.
This defense could be a sneaky good unit with just a couple upgrades. It shouldn’t surprise us, given the depth of the hole the Panthers are digging out of, that one season’s focus in free agency and the draft wasn’t enough to completely fix this formerly talent-bereft roster.
Rico Dowdle deserved the game ball yesterday and if–extremely big if–this is the spark that rights the Panthers season then he deserves everybody’s bonus checks for any incentives they reach down the stretch of the season. This guy single handedly won fantasy games yesterday as his 206-yards rushing on the day was the most yards rushing in a single game by any player in the NFL so far this season.
He is currently tied with Jonathan Stewart for the second most yards rushing in the history of the Carolina Panthers and came a few late game cramps away from breaking DeAngelo Williams single-game franchise record of 210 yards.
It’s nice to have nice things to talk about.
Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys wrecked the New York Jets yesterday in New Jersey. Prescott threw for four touchdowns and zero interceptions despite missing four of his starting offensive linemen and his top three receivers. You may recognize those as similar circumstances to those that led these Panthers to getting demolished by the New England Patriots just last week.
On the one hand, it’s worth pointing out that the Cowboys beat the Jets while the Panthers lost to a team that just beat the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo. On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that Prescott and Young are not the same kind of quarterback. The Cowboys probably have a higher ceiling than the Panthers because they have a higher ceiling at quarterback.
For the moment, it looks like we should expect the Cowboys to win their Week 6 match up against the Panthers if for no other reason than the Panthers will not be able to rely on Prescott making the same level of mistakes that Kyler Murray, Michael Penix Jr, and Tua Tagovailoa did in weeks past. A more efficient offensive opponent will make it that much harder for the Panthers to overcome their own mistakes and keep up.
That said, Young is welcome to prove wrong the 85% of fans who were ready to move on from him last week. It was fun to watch him finally dig out of a hole of his own making. I’m certain I’d also enjoy watching him not dig one in the first place.