If you cannot beat the Saints once. In 2025. Probably shouldn’t be thinking about the playoffs. Yeah, You, you, mm, you know what, let’s just go ahead and get this sucker started. We have a lot of things to say. Get dialed in, Panthers fans. Here comes an in-depth look at your team. Exclusive interviews, locker room insight. Let’s huddle up for Panthers Playbook presented by Wake Orthopedics, a WakeMed physician practice. Here are your hosts, Dennis Cox and Chris Lee. Welcome back to another episode of Panthers Playbook, and that’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you. Panthers Playbook sponsored by our good friends over at Wake Orthopedics. Folks, just go ahead and vent down in the comment section because that’s exactly what Chris and I are going to do. By the way. Please subscribe if you haven’t already. And also you can follow us on your favorite podcast platforms as well and hit that like button, uh, because I know people don’t like the result of this 20 to 17 loss to the New Orleans Saints. And like you said, Chris, if you can’t beat the Saints one time this season, Maybe you don’t earn your way into the playoffs. Maybe you don’t deserve to make it. Obviously, I know everything is still in front of this Panthers team now at 7 and 7 with the Bucks coming into town. Well, we can dive into that later on in the week, but everything was right in front of this Panthers team to take, right in front of them to take, and you had 2 weeks to prepare for it. And you did it, do it, plain and simple. You laid flat again. This is the multiple times now we’ve seen this team beat a good team. We’ve seen the Panthers beat a good team, and then you lay an egg against the Saints. The Saints. I was writing notes, um, during this game, and if you happen to, uh, see my Instagram within 24 hours of this, uh, being published, you can go to my Instagram. I put the notes on my story, um, and I ended the note, uh, my notes that I published. I didn’t publish everything with Kellen Moore outcoaches Canales again. The Saints right now have 4 wins this season. Half of their wins are the Carolina Panthers, the same team that think that they are going to the playoffs. So they still could, still absolutely could. They still can. It’s, it’s still in front of them. Like it’s not like it’s out of, out of the realm of possibility. It’s still something that they can achieve and accomplish. But also, this was an opportunity to show that you belong and that you can show some consistency and start to stack some wins because if you go to the playoffs, what are you gonna have to do? You’re gonna have to stack wins because if you lose, you’re out. And when it came down to winning time and making the winning plays. Nobody had it. Defense didn’t have it. Offense didn’t have it. Um, I guess special teams didn’t have an opportunity to really make, uh, any special, you know, winning plays, but, you know, there were, there were some penalties and things like that as well. Like, like you had a long return by Trevor ETN and then Bryson Jermaine’s gotta call back. Gotta, gotta kick it all over again. So again, like just, they, they, they shot themselves in the foot, Chris. It, it, it’s one of the things that just, I, it just everything kind of comes down to for me is. Shout out to DJ Remedy. He works for K975 in, in, uh, in Raleigh. It’s a hip hop station out here. We always trade messages back and forth talking about the Carolina Panthers. And he made a good point to me. He was like, this whole week, they were talking about, you know what, we’re not really paying attention to, not this whole week, but since, you know, Thursday. Um, we’re not really paying attention to the result of the, uh, Tampa Bay and Atlanta game. We just kinda have to go out and just do our job. And it and In that, in them saying that, it almost felt like they came out of this game and he pointed this out like they already felt like they had this in, in the bag, right? Like there, there was nothing extra behind it. And it reminded me of why I don’t like the way that Dave Canales and Bryce Young. Handle press conferences. Because mainly, when you say that you’ve moved on or we’re doing this, it’s our process, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the word salad that they normally give us, the normal stuff, I don’t believe it, because these are the results. This is the most disappointing loss for the Carolina Panthers this season. And on the bright side, the reason why is because there’s expectations. So this is where you, this is where you wanna be. You wanna have expectations. The other losses, there’s expectations in the, in the Saints loss from before, uh, at home. The other losses that were blowouts and stuff like that, it’s like, OK, all right, you know, those are blowouts, but we could get over that by the second. Second quarter because we know it’s gonna be a blowout. You’re supposed to show that we can handle the moment. You beat the Rams, have an off week, come back, stay disciplined. This is week, 15. Don’t get as many penalties. Don’t do so many dumb things to shoot yourselves in the foot. And what did they do? Shot themselves in the foot. Did those things, did those exact things. And I, I, when they got the ball, I, I’m outside of that final possession where there was the pass to Coker and he tried, they tried to do the lateral and all that kind of stuff, which was just, you know, whatever. But on that final possession, you’re like, OK, this is where we expect the Panthers and, and we’ve seen many times this season. All right, tie game. Let’s go down, get a field goal. You only give it one sack, but you give it up at the worst time. You give it up at the worst time. And there’s just moments that there’s just so many missed opportunities. Like, for example, end of the first half, that drive that you have, that’s gotta be a touchdown to Tederola McMillan. You settle for a field goal, that’s gotta be a touchdown to Tederola McMillan. People could say that. Multiple things can be true. The throw by Bryce needs to be in front of T Mac because he throws it behind him. He gives the defensive back a chance to get their hands on the ball, which he does, or at least somewhat interfere with the play, but you’ll also want T Mac to make that catch too. Like, hey, make a tough catch. I want him to be a little bit stronger with a tough catch. Yes, a little bit, make a tough catch, but like Bryce throw it better. Yeah, exactly. Both things can be true. The pass can be better, but you also want him to make that catch. Both things can be true, and also give credit to the defensive back for not giving up on the play. You missed on opportunities. That’s gotta be a touchdown. You gotta have a touchdown. Again, you have. I said it on radio earlier this week. We’re gonna find out a lot about this Panthers team and if they really are truly ready to take advantage of the opportunity that they have and go to the next level. Because everything was right there in front of them to take. The path was crystal clear going into this game, and they knew it. Let’s be honest, the players knew it. They know what the, they knew going into this game what the what the path was. Beat the Saints, then you beat the Bucks. But the first part of that was beat the Saints. Take care of your own business. Now they’ve given up the control. They don’t have full control. They could have taken full control and run with it. Instead, it’s just another mediocre performance. The last 8 games for this Panthers teams, Chris. Win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. That’s the last 8 games for this team. It’s just back and forth, back and forth. There’s zero consistency with them. Let me point out, here are some of the other parts that, um, of the game that I, I took notes on. Um, I, I just put simply, defense not getting off the field on 3rd and long, and one of the best examples. I, uh, I believe this was the 3rd quarter. Mike Jackson forces a fumble. Saints, uh, get on top of it, which is fine, you know. Christian Roseboom tried his best. I’m, I’m not gonna fault him for that. But then you have the, you have the Saints. You said what? That’s a great tackle by Mike Jackson on that play, by the way. Great, great job from him. Great job from him. Uh, but then you have the Saints in a 3rd and long situation, and they convert. And then all of a sudden, like, you have them behind the sticks, you have them playing negative yardage, but then they’re able to get more than enough on a 3rd and long attempt. Um, and then, they ended up scoring, uh, a field goal on that, uh, on that drive. And between that drive, the drive before that where they scored the 7 points in the 2nd quarter, uh, that was 31 plays, 19+ minutes. 19+ minutes between two drives for the Saints. That was huge in that. Again, to my last note, Kellen Moore outcoached Dave Canales. Let’s move on from there. Real quick on that, you mentioned that first drive, the touchdown for them, the first touchdown drive. I even tweeted this. I said the Saints gave the Panthers a taste of their own medicine. Go on. Yeah, and you know, I was so angry. I wish I could have tweeted or seen Twitter during this cause I’m still hacked. I’m not. Yeah, it’s fine. Um, the next, uh, possession for the Carolina Panthers. Um, they, I haven’t said this a lot this year, but if you’ve been listening to us the last couple of years, I’ve said with Bryce Young, they don’t have a really good 4th and inches call because you have to, you have to give it to a running back or you have to do something else, right? Like for a lot of players, for a lot of teams, excuse me, on 4th and inches, like that close, like you, you’re literally that far away from getting a 1st down. You can simply take the snap and fall forward, right? But because Bryce Young is so small, they don’t have none of his coaching staffs, the first one or the current one, have any faith in him doing a quarterback sneak, mainly because he’s so small, you don’t want to put him in that type of a pile. So because of that, you have to go back and hand it off, and the Saints with a great rush. Stop them, and the Panthers do not get a chance to extend that drive. If they extend that drive, there’s at least 3 points that’s coming out of that. And more time off of the clock could possibly have been what actually flipped the game right there. Then we go on more they were already field goal range too, by the way. They’re at the 35 yard lines of the Saints. They easily could have just kicked the field goal right there. More soft as zone from, from the Panthers, uh, defense, and then the Panthers get the, get the, uh, ball back, and I just wrote, everybody’s screens work. Dave Cannalysis doesn’t. Yeah, Chuba Hubbard had the one on the touchdown, and you know, the, a dead clock can be wrong twice a day. But for the most part, like, I, I don’t have no faith in a, in a, in a screen. Like their screen game is, is really horrible, almost cursed right there. Their screen game is really horrible, right? Hold on to that button because there’s a few more that could have come up. Um, Panthers then get a big stop on 4th down, right? Because the Saints were in field goal range themselves. Uh, they actually kicked 1 penalty, and then they get closer, they say, hey, we’re gonna go for Panthers stop them. Um. Then they follow that with a with a lousy 3 and out. Yeah, that was bad, and and and so then you punt it back, and then all of a sudden. Tyler Shuck, who was the best quarterback in this game, like Bryce Young didn’t have a bad game. He just had a Bryce Young game, you know what I’m saying? So like I’m not, I’m not gonna be dissing him. He had a Bryce Young game. But the, the winning quarterback who made the winning plays was Tyler Chuck. So let’s put it, put that out there. Um, soft that zone, you have 3 straight completions to Chris Olave, and then you have a 4th for a touchdown. He had 1 catch the entire game, and on that one drive, they go from the 21 straight to scoring a touchdown in 2 minutes. Because you played no defense. You, you literally gave them open completions, and this is the part that makes me wanna pull out the, the little bit of hair I, I have right here, because it’s like, you know, what are the Panthers gonna do scheme-wise to actually try to stop a team. And it’s, it’s just, it’s not there. And it was, it was frustrating. Penalties get them closer once again because you can’t convert on, on, on, on, you know, when you have the ball once again, you’re, you’re out, so, you know, whatever. And then all of a sudden, uh, they’re kicking a game-winning field goal. And all of those Moments. You had so many opportunities to extend it to try to go win the game, and you couldn’t. We always talked about, or the media talks about nationally, that’s 11 close games that Bryce Young has, has won, most since, uh, he’s been in the league in 2023, uh, 1 possession games, and at some point, it’s going to catch you because you brought this up before, Dennis. A lot of times, penalties on other teams, nice running plays from Chuba Hubbard. Other factors have gone in versus Bryce Young’s actual arm talent and his accuracy from actually, you know, and getting the, the Panthers within the field goal range to actually win these or to hand it off to Chuba Hubbard to win in overtime, run a, win a touchdown. There’s so many, at some point, somebody was gonna catch you because you don’t know how to pull away from teams. You had a 2-score lead. And you can’t pull away from these teams. It’s gonna bite you in the butt. And if you want to be a playoff team, you’re gonna have to know how to put teams away, especially when you have a two-score lead, especially when it’s one of the worst teams in the league in the New Orleans Saints. Yeah, and people, people always say, hey, divisional game, you never know what’s gonna happen, divisional game. I understand it’s a divisional game. But also be the better team. Just plain and simple. Be the better team. Be the better team who, who realizes that a, a playoff spot is on the line. You put all the pressure on the, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If we win this, all we have to do is beat them once. That’s all you gotta do. That’s all you gotta do. And you have them twice with the Seahawks now. Now it’s not so clear. Now, again, you ceded control. You completely ceded control. Now, the Bucks don’t have control either. It’s just open their fifty-fifty for you to take as opposed to taking that. Now, you mentioned that touchdown drive. I think a lot of that also was aided by the fact that the Panthers, like you said, went 3 and out. They went 3 and out. That 3rd-down pass completion to Tyrell McMillan, you got to get beyond the sticks. You gotta get beyond the sticks. You can’t get to sort of near the line of game, then take a step back. No, you have to get beyond the sticks. That pass has got to get, and that’s on McMillan as well. Get beyond the sticks. If you’re, you can’t just do like a little hook route and just stand there. If you’re gonna do a hook route, and stand there, it’s 35, get, go 6 yards downfield. Not 4. Like so it’s just, it’s little things like that. Like it’s, it’s details. And then you, like you mentioned, that touchdown drive that tied things up. He had a pass completion. These are 4 straight plays, 11 yard pass, 17 yard pass, 18-yard pass, 16-yard pass. They had a penalty, and incompletion, then a 9-yard pass, and then they actually decided to bring pressure. You put your guys out 1 on 1 and JC gets beat. JC got beat 1 on 1. You put him out on an island, he tries to undercut the route. It was a great throw. Now you have a tied ballgame. But just he hasn’t been in practice, uh, being on the island though this year. So no, that’s the thing, it’s like now you went against your scheme. you went against your own, you went against your own scheme. It’s just. I’m This team As much as we have seen them improve. We are also realizing as well how long and how far this team has to go. If you really want to be a true playoff team, you can’t lose these games. Like if you really want to take this franchise this, if this franchise wants to go to the next level where they’re like being looked at as serious, you can’t lose this game. Plain and simple. You can’t lose this game. I think the thing that I’m looking back on it now a little bit, Chris, I think this Panthers team probably just plays to the level of their competition, which is scary. For the most part they play to the level of their competition. Maybe I don’t know. There’s still the the Patriots game. There’s still the Bills game and stuff out there when they get blown out. I, well, they’ve got blown out in a couple of those games, but I don’t know, it’s just. They’re confusing to me. They really, I, I actually, I don’t know. Maybe that’s not even a fair statement in terms of they played to the level of their competition because they didn’t play that great against the 4, the Forty-Niners either. I, I don’t know. It’s just, it’s, it’s, I’m, I’m done trying to figure this team out. It is very confusing. It’s something that, uh, like for the first time, like, I’ll say this, I haven’t been angry with the Panthers’ loss in a while because, you know, typically, you know, as I said earlier. It’s a blowout, you know, when they do lose, it’s a blowout. You, you pretty much, you know, can get over it by the end of the game because you have two quarters to, to realize it’s a, it’s a blowout. They’re gonna lose. I’m just watching to, to see what they can improve on, right? That’s pretty much why I’m watching because, you know, we, we’ve got to do this podcast. To have real expectations, me and you, uh, I guess we said, you know, the 7 and 97 to 9 wins range for this season, right, and they could have gotten their 8th win and to realize that right now at 7 and 7. When we predicted what they were gonna do, 2 of those wins that I had for them this year were against the Saints. They got the 7 and, they got the 7 and 6 without beating the Saints, right? So just, just imagine, on the two games, you could still do the back and forth thing besides the Saints games. If you take uh care of those two games. You are what at this point they’d be 2 games ahead of the Bucks. I mean, yeah, I mean, if you take care of the Saints in both those games as opposed to 7 and 7, you’re 9 and 5. And, and so you’re 2 games ahead of the Bucks at that point, essentially all you really have to do is just don’t lose to the Bucks twice. Just beat them once. Just beat him once, you know, and, and you could have this thing wrapped up by week 16. And you know, start, I, I don’t want, you don’t wanna coast into the playoffs or whatever, but you, you have everything firmly locked up, and now, um, you have things to kind of build on, and uh, it’s, I, I almost wonder if some of these close wins have been fool’s gold for the Carolina Panthers, um, and, and I. It never made me feel comfortable with the Panthers driving at the end of the game, even though, you know, we’ve had so many close wins and cardiac cats are back, and Bryce Young has had 11 of these, you know, uh, final drive, you know, uh, you know, scores to, to get wins for the Carolina Panthers in his career the most since 2023. It’s looking good. It never felt like it was an automatic. No, it’s not, it’s rare that he’s been on a field that I felt like he’s the best quarterback on the field, and even today versus Tyler Shuck, whose first start, I, I believe was against the Panthers, uh, when they got the 1st, 2nd, his first win. Sorry about that, um. Who’s played basically just about half of the season, has already looked like a way better quarterback. In his 3 wins that he’s had. Than what Bryce Young had. Bryce Young only had 2 his first year, and I think one of those got, actually, wait a minute, just one, because I didn’t, did one come from? No, 2, because he had the win against the Houston Texans, he had the win against the, the Falcons in the 9-7 run. That’s right. Um, so Tyler Chuck in half of a season in his first year already has more wins than Bryce Young did in his first year. Like, you know. Call me a hater, but facts are facts. Results are results. Kevin Moore is doing this in his first year. Imagine them with another offseason to retool. This, this frightens me moving forward because I don’t know if the, if the coaching staff or the roster is gonna be able to handle success. Something will need to change. Because doing it the way you’re doing it is not working. Something is going to have to change. I don’t know what that is. It may not have to be personnel. It might just be the way that you approach games. It might be the, the way you prepare during the week. I’m not saying anybody needs to get fired or cut or anything like that. Something though, has to change, cause whatever is going on right now, you’re lucking into wins. Because your players, when they’re making spectacular plays. Like against the Rams. What’s up Derek Brown? What’s up, uh, you know, Mike Jackson doing great jobs, right? When they’re, when they’re forcing you to win, because they’re just outplaying the schemes, then you get those wins. Otherwise, if another team is just sound the entire time and makes no mistakes, this is what you get. Uh, one final note here, uh, in terms of this Panthers offense this season, that’s the 8th time this year they’ve been held under 20 points. 8th time they’ve been held under 20 points. And you mentioned Tyler Shuck. Tyler Shuck has thrown for over 200 yards 4 times this season. Bryce Young has thrown for over 200 yards, 3. Leave your thoughts in the comments, folks. 24 for 32, 1 touchdown, 15 versus 15 for 24 and 1 touchdown. That was a beautiful pass to Jalen Coker though. Call it what it was. It was a beautiful pass to Jalen. It was. That was a beautiful play. He’ll have a couple of the game. Oh yeah, like will he scramble out? Will he have the right passes at the right time of, of the game, the scramble out to the right side where he avoided pressure. I think it was on the 4th down. He hit Terrell McMillan. That was a fantastic play. Otherwise, it’s just, it’s just. We set it up. Wake Orthopedics, shout out to them. They’re a sponsor here at Panthers Playbook. Again, leave your thoughts in the comment section down below, folks. Uh. Sunday, Bank of America must win. We’ll have another episode for you all on Thursday. Enjoy the rest of your night. Damn it.
