You gotta go back to work. Got our ass whooped day. I mean pass off to him. They whoop their ass. So gotta go back to work. So in the same position 4 weeks ago. He’s not wrong, Chris. He ain’t tell now one lie, no lies detected from there, not one. Let’s get this sucker started. Get dialed in Panthers fans. Here comes an in-depth look at your team. Exclusive interviews locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panther’s Playbook presented by Wake Orthopedics, a wake med physician practice. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to the episode of Panther’s Playbook. That’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you. Wake Orthopedics, our sponsor here at Panthers Playbook, and folks, let’s go ahead and, and just invent in the comment section. Let’s be honest, Chris, that was an that was an embarrassing loss. We back, baby. We are back, baby. We got blown out by 31 at home. We are so back and, and, and gave up over 200 yards on the ground to one guy. All the progress and it just throwback Sunday. It’s like Charlotte Bobcats night all over again. But here’s the thing again. Leave your thoughts in the comment section on this loss. Like, does this, does this loss derail? There’s a lot of things that went wrong in this game. Andy Dalton was brutally bad. The rush defense was brutally bad, and the decision we’ll get into a little bit later on of the alternating running back street shootel Hubbard and Rico Dale. It’s brutally bad. It was brutally bad all fronts today coaching players, everything. Let me answer your question. Does this derail the Panthers? No, I just think that this game proved that they are not in that and we break the NFL down into three tiers, right? The, the really, really good teams, the middle of the road teams who are probably fighting for the playoffs and the teams that are not gonna be in the playoffs, Panthers proved in this game and through the last few weeks that they are the top of that third tier. They, they are almost getting into that second tier. Yeah I know they’re more closer to that second bottom of that second tier, but yeah, I see what you’re saying, but they’re nowhere close to being anywhere near good enough to beat a team like that. It’s back to. If you’re gonna turn the ball over, you’re not going to win the game. Now you could do that against Miami. You could do that against Dallas. You could even do that against the Jets even though they didn’t turn the ball over last week. I mean, you almost did it against the Arizona Cardinals, you know, and almost did it against the Arizona Cardinals, but this was, this is the Buffalo Bills out here with Josh Allen at quarterback, and Josh Allen didn’t even have to be Josh Allen today for that. I mean, James Cook, he was just there, cooked, yeah he did he. He absolutely flambade he sauteed. He did everything against the Carolina Panthers, and it was, uh, it was horrible and and so somebody said, I think David Newton had this. I don’t know, um, you know if this is all the way true we have to check on it.168 yards before contact for James Cook and finished with over 200 yards rushing it’s just not good enough and the Carolina Panthers went back they regressed. We talk about regression. A couple weeks ago and they really regressed here, uh, they’re gonna have another good team next week Dennis against the Green Bay Packers. But once they go against teams that are on their level like the, the Saints, I expect them to play a lot better. So yeah, that again it kind of goes to show you where they are right now in the league and you talk about let’s go to James Cook here real fast. Over 200 yards rushing for James Cook over the last three games between the Dolphins, 216, 11.4 average. 11.4 yards per carry. Speaking of that, against the Dolphins, the Cowboys, and the Jets, the Panthers gave up a total of 131 yards on the ground and didn’t allow a run of 10 or more yards. James Cook today had 7 carries of 10 or more yards today, including a 2021 yard touchdown run and a 64 yard touchdown run which was just, uh, the 64 yard touchdown run felt like it was just bound to happen. He had more yards, at 146 yards when they, when he scored the 64 yard touchdown in the second quarter. There’s still 7:33 left on the clock in the second quarter, and he’s already at 146. That’s just brutally bad run defense and unfortunately I think this is the trend that we’re seeing with the Panthers where it was extreme one end or extreme the other, not consistently in the middle ground. I think that’s something you and I have been harping on over the last few weeks is what’s sustainable, what’s consistent with this team, and we, we didn’t see anything of consistency other than Dave Canalas alternating running backs. That’s how you, that’s how you know that a team just isn’t. You know they’re not ready right now and they’re still growing when you can’t consistently get the same thing from week to week it’s just depending on who you play if you’re gonna play the Bills, it’s not gonna look so good if you’re gonna play the Dolphins or the Saints, it’s gonna look awesome you know and and that that means that you’re not there, you have not arrived there’s still a lot of work to be done and uh you know I’m, I think I’m still back to wondering. About schemes I’m wondering about coaching putting guys in the right places, things like that. I will say this is something that Carolina Panthers can’t help, yeah. Um, our boy Pat Jones was absolutely missed today, um, like you could, you could see where he would have been effective not only just rushing, uh, quarterback but also setting some edges. I mean they were, they were eating those edges alive, uh, in this game and then also I mean we’ll talk about it. This is the first time that Annie Dalton started for Bryce Young where I was like. Bryce has missed. Oh yeah, and I didn’t feel that way to the second half, honestly, like until the second half it looked like kind of all the same. In the second half it was when Dalton started getting sacked a lot. It’s like, man, Bryce would have escaped some of that. Oh yeah, he definitely would have. I mean, the, the Panthers had a chance at the end of the first half to get a touchdown or at least get a field goal, and Dalton takes a bad sack. Like that’s on Dalton. Dalton, he knows he’s been in the league for 15 years. He knows he can’t take a sack there at the end of the first half. That took points off the board. He had to rush out there to try and kick a field goal, which you missed, which I think the clock hit 0 anyway, but you still missed on that opportunity, and I think the biggest thing that you and I are seeing over the last couple of weeks, I, I, I, I’ll say this. Dave Canales single-handedly cooled off a white hot Rico Dowdle singlehandedly did it, and I think in my eyes it’s been some stubbornness on his part. It really has been to go with every other series for Rico Dowdle and Shuba Hubbard. It’s clearly not working. The fact that Rico Dowdle, Chris. Had one offensive play in the second half until less than 5 minutes to play in the fourth quarter. One offensive snap for Rico Dowdle for a guy that averaged 6.8 yards to carry and 1 carry in the second half. Yeah, that was just, it was meaningless. There was less than 5 minutes to play. I mean, Chris. That’s not a recipe for winning. It simply is, it is irresponsible on Dave Canales’s part. Say that one more time for the people in the absolutely irresponsible. You had a guy who really only start, who only started two games and because of the bulk of the production that he got again against bad teams, the bulk of the production that he had in those games got him up as high as 2nd in the league in rushing. And then you literally take it out of his hands and we’re not saying not to run Chuba Hubbard, but we’re also saying if you’re gonna put out the Panthers like, OK, first, uh, possession of the second half, it’s Cuba’s turn fumble they recovered a fumble, they have to punt next time Rico Dado comes out. Rico didn’t even have a chance to touch the ball right there, uh, immediate fumble from, uh, from, uh, Danny Dalton and then all of a sudden. The next one, you’re putting out Shuba Hubbard again when this guy didn’t even get a chance to touch the ball. At some point you have to learn how to deviate from the plans. Like sometimes you wanna go everything by the book. You wanna have certain plans, but if you know that you have a guy that hadn’t been in the rhythm, haven’t had a chance to touch the ball since the first half. And it’s not his fault. It’s a fumble. Put him back out there and so like we also talked about we wanted to see two back sets. I think I only saw that once, and that was the that was the Wildcat, yeah, it was the Wildcat, which I was like, why, why are you getting cute because Rico Dado just popped off a big 24 yard run, got yourself inside the red zone actually where we’re standing. Right over here and then they try to go that wildcat thing and then it went for nothing and then the very next play is when Dalton got strip sacked and it, it almost felt like see he got sacked he actually had a yard but nonetheless it’s like, see guys, I tried a two back set and like that’s not good enough at all because you put Andy Dalton out wide so Andy Dalton’s not doing any anything out there. The defense knows what’s happening. Are you gonna have Rico Dole air the ball out? Not really. Go straight to the two running backs and, and, and get them down on the ground and so there was nothing that happened in that game that put the the Bills back on their heels again, the team that coming into this game was 31st in the league and rushing yards allowed her game and the Carolina Panthers could not take advantage of that. That lasting yards per carry allowed in the NFL and Rico was 6.8, 6.8 yards a carry. Rico had only 8 carries and, and like what you look at something like that and just I’ll use the word again, Dennis, it was just absolutely irresponsible on his part. I, I’m not sure like I’m trying to get into the head of a coach maybe. We can ask other coaches to try to figure it out what it is you, you have plans. You wanna go by the plan, but sometimes you have to abandon ship. If I, if I was saying like, hey, the way to get to Charlotte is through I-85 South, but I-85 has a crazy accident and everything’s blocked up, well, we might have to deviate, go 40 West to go through Greensboro and Winston Salem just to hit. 77 to come back down might take us a little bit longer but we’re gonna get to the same location, right? And he didn’t do any of that. He’s like, uh, no, we’re gonna sit on 85. We’ll just see if uh this will open up anytime soon and it never opened up and I just, I don’t understand the thought process behind it, uh, because like any other time when we’ve seen last year when the plan was to run the ball and you get behind just by a little bit, all of a sudden get rid of that plan and you start throwing it so like we know that you can deviate from a from a plan. But when it comes down to something that can actually help you, I don’t care that you’re, you’re paying Cuba more. I don’t care that he’s your guy. This is the guy that’s producing and even in this game when he had the opportunity, he produced and you didn’t give him an opportunity. How many, how many carries 8 carries. Almost said a word I couldn’t say on here. It’s alright, I’ll bleep it out. It’s all good, man. It’s all good. Derek Brown said it earlier. I already edited it once, but that’s the, but that’s the thing. That’s why I said I, I think there’s a level of stubbornness to it that the fact that he’s going to try and make it work. I’m gonna fit this square peg into this round hole. I know he said he studied what the. Detroit Lions do with David Montgomery and Jamir Gibbs. I totally get that you wanna have that style of I had to totally get that. I’m sorry, I had to look. What’s that? Let’s do some, uh, some zodiac stuff here. Uh, Dave Canno’s birthday is May 7th, 1981. He is a stubborn Taurus. Tauruses, I have two grandfathers, rest in peace, both of them, uh, they’re both Tauruses, uh, Taurus men are very stubborn. I’ll take your word on that one, but in regards to this, yeah, there’s a level of stubbornness of the fact that he’s going to try and make it work again. Detroit has probably the, the number one in terms of the two back system right with David Montgomery and Jamir Gibbs. Well, first of all, in all with all due respect. Rico Daddle and Tubba Hubbard aren’t Jamir Gibbs and David Montgomery. They’re not in terms of the physical talent, but it doesn’t mean you can’t still use them in that same side way. Detroit doesn’t use them like that. They don’t. They just simply do not. And then something the final thing on this one again, uh, defense was bad. The decision making was bad, and Andy Dalton was bad, like brutally bad. Like all three again were brutally bad in this game. Dalton didn’t take care of the ball and I also think, I also don’t think that first the, the, the play calling did anybody any favors in this one as well. It’s when you know you have a quarterback that doesn’t have the mobility. That doesn’t have the ability to escape and improvise. Get the ball out of his hands quickly and it felt like Andy Dalton was holding on to the ball too long at times but nothing early in the game was actually opening up for him in terms of just short quick completions. There’s those things that also just weren’t there as well the play calling just none of it, none of it flowed today. That’s, that’s where I kind of wonder like what is Dave Canals doing for his, uh, quarterbacks to get them in a rhythm passing the ball. I was saying to you it feels like. Early on in games, he has to hit for 8 to 15 yards every time uh somebody drops back there’s there’s nothing that’s out besides, you know, the Dave Canal screen. There’s really not much that’s right there in that short area uh for the for the quarterbacks and I was just watching it and it just didn’t feel like that ever happened here. It doesn’t feel like it ever happens for Bryce. Like it doesn’t feel like there’s ever anything that’s there drop back, boom, go and um you just kind of wonder like what what needs to change when it comes to that you get quarterbacks in a rhythm. I don’t know if it’s just the the personnel with the wide receivers not able to beat their men off the line of scrimmage if other teams are playing main coverage whatever it might be, but you and I are sitting up there in the press box and watching the game and it just feels like. With Carolina that there aren’t just simple just underneath drag routes from a wide receiver. I think Xavierly get with his just physical stature and speed and his size and everything just on a simple drag route underneath with a tight end clear space in the middle of the field. You had Tedro McMullin clearing space downfield and just. On a simple underneath drag rod underneath it is Xavier get about 4 yards downfield where you can just dump it off to him and just let him catch and run or or a tight end or anything from the running backs or tight ends you know you don’t see that or what they call Texas route out of the backfield with the with the running back. You don’t see any of that with this offense and that it’s just. It’s frustrating because like I said earlier it’s one extreme or the other with this team. I, I just, there’s no level of consistency we talked about it from a player standpoint, from, uh, a team makeup standpoint earlier where we said that they’re just not in that tier the coaching staff isn’t in that tier either to to deal with, uh, a team that is in that top. He, uh, top 3rd tier of the NFL, like if you have somebody, I mean the last two times the Bills were on the field, it didn’t look very good. Like people were starting to question what was going on with the Bills. They have a bye week they come to Carolina and then they have a get right game and that’s the thing a game when whenever good teams go against it’s a nice little spider right there. Uh, whenever teams come to, uh, play the, the Carolina Panthers and they’re a good team, somebody’s gonna have a good get right game and you know they’ve graduated to we’re not gonna have to let you have a get right game Dallas Cowboys, even they have, even though they had a pretty good good game themselves. We’re not gonna let you have a good, uh, get right game, uh, Dolphins, even though they had an OK game themselves, uh. The the Bills straight up get right game for them and Josh Allen didn’t have to do squash. Josh Allen had a night off. He had a night off. He did. It’s, it’s, um, it’s frustrating. It’s, it’s head scratching and I’ll go back to, uh, the, the main word of the day. Irresponsible Leave your thoughts in the comments section, folks give a big shout out to our sponsor Wake Orthopedics, and we’ll actually we’ll we’ll end here on 111 more sound bite here from Derek Brown about not allowing frustration carry from one game one week to the next. You go back to work. That’s all you can do if you’re a man, you’ll show up and you’ll make it better. If not, then you know you’ll fall and to come to this. How do you make sure the frustration. Obviously there’s getting back to work, but there’s a mental aspect of it too. I mean you got to be a leader and try to keep guys from doing it. I mean when it happens when you see it you gotta speak up and you gotta kill it. Well, Chris, thankfully it’s just one game. The Panthers are still 44, it’s just one game, but they gotta go on the road for a tough one next week in Green Bay. We’ll, we’ll see how quickly they can turn it around and one thing uh just to talk about. that is, uh, we’ve seen some injuries on the offensive line. Brady Christensen done with the Achilles injury, uh, for the season. That’s gonna be tough. Uh, we also have to see what happens, uh, with, uh, the knee injury, uh, for, yes, for, uh, Taylor Moton has a knee. Taylor Molton had a knee injury left the game, and Kays has an ankle, so we have to see kind of what happens with all that. Um, the main thing is, and I said it earlier, Bryce Young was missed in this game, even though I will say the first half was a Bryce Young game, the teams, fumble loss. We’ve seen that multiple times this season. It was a Brice young game, um, but I will say this, uh, we, this coaching staff has said that they want, uh, competition at every position. I will go back to this. We need to be really looking at the quarterback if Bryce is your guy, if Bryce is your guy moving forward, bring somebody in who’s going to push him because if he goes down with the injury like this, this is not acceptable. Like I’m sorry, Andy, it’s been a great 3 years he’s done and, and Dave Callister say that he’s absolutely the backup quarterback going forward for Bryce Shaw. Andy Dalton is. That’s what Dave Canal said postgame, but. We’ll see. We still love you. Hey guys. Hey. It’s gonna be OK. It’s gonna be fun. We still have the saints going twice, twice and the Falcons and the Falcons. We’re gonna bounce back. We’re gonna get at least 6 wins this year. At least. Only 2 more to go.
