That was a hell of a game, man. That was a heck of a game. You know what, I’m gonna explain this on the other side. That was the best loss of the season. Yeah, I’ll explain what I mean. Unfortunately, it’s a loss, and for the final time of this season, 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 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 the Panthers Playbook, and that’s Chris Lee. Dennis Cox here with you. We’re at Bank of America Stadium. Leave your thoughts in the comment section about this 34-31 loss to the LA Rams here in Wild Card Weekend. And, uh, Chris, I know a mix of emotion, by the way, and if you haven’t subscribed already, please do. Real quick shout out. Thank you all for just being with us this entire season. We’ve met a lot of fans and stuff. We’ll dive more into that a little bit later on in the show, but we’ve met a lot of fans, like for real, for real love. But let’s get into the game itself, Chris. I thought they had it. I thought they had it. I, I, I, I, I will say this. It didn’t look good at 14-0. It was not looking good down 14-0 early on in that game. Oh, we were panicking. Oh, we’re like, mm mm, we’re panicking a little bit, but they didn’t though. But Panthers didn’t. I, but I, I thought they had it when they got the touchdown pass to Jalen Coker. I was like, my goodness, 11 stop. One stop. One stop. Canalla said something very interesting. He said, um, his team didn’t pass judgment on the game early on when they were down 14 to 0, and I thought that was a really key thing. I mean, if you look at the way this game went. Compare it to the last game, the Panthers turned them over 3 times, and everything had to go their way for them to win by 3, right? This was almost the reverse of the last game because the, the Rams had to benefit from 2 Panthers turnovers and also 2 turnovers on downs, effectively in the middle of the field. So 4 turnovers, um, if you want to count it that way for them to only win by 3. What I had a punt blocked as well. Like, what a turnaround for the Carolina Panthers. And just to quickly explain what I mean when I started off the show saying this was the best loss of the season. Jaguars, blowout. Cardinals, blowout, last minute attempt to try to come back, but it was too little, too late, right? Patriots, blowout. Bills, blowout, Saints, really, if you don’t score in that first drive, and also if you don’t benefit from that, uh, from roughing the passer, you probably don’t score in that, could have been a blowout, but essentially you didn’t show up. 49ers, you didn’t show up. Defense showed up early in that game though. I will say that defense showed up early in the game. Second Saints game, you didn’t show up. Well, there’s some comparisons to that game we’ll talk about with this one, but still, they didn’t, they never really had control of that game. No, they never really did. Seahawks game. Didn’t show up, blowout and Buccaneers didn’t show up last minute comeback, failed, and you never led in that game. In this game, all was lost. This is the Rams. They’re talking about Matthew Stafford possibly being an MVP candidate. This is a team that people are saying should have won their division, probably can win a Super Bowl, and the Carolina Panthers are down 14. to 0 to that team, effectively 4 turnovers and still was able to come back, get the lead, and boy, the Rams were sweating. The, the contingency that the Rams brought to the press box, I was sitting close to them, they were all sweating because a lot of them were tweeting different things like the comeback tour or the revenge tour, excuse me, begins. It almost wasn’t that. It almost ended as soon as it began for the Rams, and the Carolina Panthers absolutely grew up, be down 14 to 0 to come back, to have that lead and have them sweating. That’s why I say this is the best loss of the season for them. This was a grown-up game for the Carolina Panthers. They battled. You got to give them a lot of credit. There were, there were some moments where things could have slipped away. For example, it’s 17 to 7. It’s 4th quarter, I’m sorry, 2nd quarter, and it’s actually the end zone where we’re standing right over here. The Rams go for it with about 1 minute and 30 left or roughly around that time. They decide to go for it on 4th down, 4th and short, even though they’re right around the red zone. And I understand the philosophy from Sean McVeigh. Get a 1st down, you know, uh, the Panthers have already used their timeouts. We can bleed the rest of the clock and get points on the board, and you get the ball to start the 2nd half. I totally understand getting it, but the. The Defense gotta stop. And then you move the ball right down the field. Bryce Young has a big long scramble for you. You know what, at 1714, you have life going into the second half, and you get a 3 and out to start the second half, and then all of a sudden, the offense finds a rhythm. The Panthers took control of the game where they easily could have let it slip in that point. But that, you gotta give, give those guys a ton of credit. That’s a really, really young team that doesn’t have a lot of playoff experience. Experience as a whole, and you gotta give them a ton of credit for how they grinded things out, how, just how gritty they were in that game. I thought Bryce, like Dave Canal said, he was gritty. He grinded it out today. I thought overall he played pretty well. Were there a couple of missed passes and stuff? Yes, there were some missed opportunities out there for sure, but overall I thought he played pretty well. Jalen Coker, have yourself a night. Have yourself a night. And he was clutch when they needed it. In all honesty. I give the guys a ton of credit for not quitting, but one thing you do learn about yourselves in these situations is how do you handle them. Late in the game, you had a lead. And the way you played defense was the exact same way you played defense against the Saints in the 2nd time you played them. Soft zone. And what happened? Matthew Stafford moved the ball right down the field even though he struggled much of the second half. He marched to move the ball right down the field with ease. By the way, hell of a catch by Kobe Parkinson, like hell of a grab, hell of a throw. But there was still plenty of time left on the clock, even if you don’t drop, if, if they dropped the. Pass wherever it might be. There was still a ton of time left on the clock for them to still work things. And then Carolina just, unfortunately wasn’t able to get anything on their attempt for a final drive to try and tie it. But that soft zone that we have seen many times throughout this season, Chris, bit them in the ass when it counted most. I think we saw. The glaring weaknesses in this game to me were the structural weaknesses that we’ve talked about all season, right? We don’t like the type of defense that Giro Everold decides to run, the soft zone that we keep talking about and that you just mentioned right there. Also, uh, second half, Dave Canales was about to run. First half he was not. Before Bryce Young had that 16 yard scramble to get into the end zone, the Panthers only had 3. 30 yards running and it rushing, it wasn’t because they didn’t, uh, they just weren’t running the ball well. They just didn’t have the attempts. I mean, we, we got to the 2nd quarter, it was like 12 and some change in the second quarter, and ETN had one attempt. Hubbard had one attempt. Dowd had 1 attempt. 3 carries on the 1st 17 plays. That, that’s, I mean, that’s putrid, and that’s one of the things where we say like. There’s, there’s some growing up not only just inside the locker room, there’s some growing up in the coach’s room, because if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna be about to run, be about to run. Have a plan for that, have a plan to go about that, and I’m not sure if he did it, it’s almost like, hey, we’re just gonna keep, you know, throwing us and, and it was like an early panic. Uh, we gotta, we gotta get better at that, um, and we’ll talk about the, you know, what we gotta look, look forward to for next season, but that’s one of those things where I think the coaches also need to look at themselves in the face. These players played their butts off. They can only go out there and, and run what is called, and try to make up for it from there. Hell of a, uh, an attempt from the Carolina Panthers, but you also got to feel like you left a lot out there on the table. Oh yeah, for example, go right to the very first drive. You get to 4th and 1, you’re at your own 45 yard line. I love the fact that Dave Canales went for it. We’ve seen him go through it all the time. You can run the ball. That’s the very first drive. Like, yeah, run the ball. You got Chuba Hubbard who played pretty well today. You have Rico Dowdell. Go heavy and sneak the ball with Mitchells this defense. Yeah, he does. Cuba loves this defense. He does. Tuba and Jalen Coker love playing against the Rams, but it’s, but that’s a missed opportunity. And guess what happened on the very next drive? 45 yard drive by the Rams, boom, it’s 7-0. Something that you pointed out, their first two touchdowns were both scored on short, uh, fields. So like, you know, if you don’t have the turnover and downs, if you don’t have the muff punt. You know what I’m saying? Like, like those are, or I’m sorry, they scored off of the inter the interception. They actually didn’t score. They didn’t score off the muff punt, which is, which is good, but like still, like, those are, those are the situations where they scored, um, uh, their first two touchdowns. For the Carolina Panthers, I know that there’s no moral victories, and you weren’t expected to be here. Everybody said you weren’t gonna win, everybody said you’re gonna get blown out, everybody said it was gonna be, Vegas said 10.5. You should have won this game if you took care of your business. Because it’s not like the Rams did anything special in this game. If you took care of your business, you would have won this game. That’s, I think that’s the thing. So I talked to Nick Skorton one on one in the locker room. We don’t have video of it. We do have audio of it. So if you listen on 99.9 The Fan on Monday, we’ll definitely be playing some of that soundbite for you. But I talked to Nick Sporting one on one about, and I, I, I asked him the question of, do you guys feel like you proved that you belong? Cause a lot of people say you’re just 89 during the regular season, you really shouldn’t be here. You guys, you know, we’re heavily underdogs and all that. And he said, You know, there’s nothing about proving anything to anybody outside of this building because we truly believed in what we could do, and they just didn’t have, you know, they just didn’t get the job done late in the game. Like he, he, he took ownership of that and I, you know, I’d ask him about his own personal season and he said, you know, I got to do more about getting the passer. Like I have to get to the passer more. This defense needs me to do that. Going forward, uh, so, I mean, he took ownership of it, but to those guys in the locker room, it was just about them. They weren’t concerned with the outside noise, and that’s something that to me shows a lot of maturity for again, a young team that hasn’t had a lot of playoff experience, the fact that they had the belief, it showed out there on the field, but once again. You have to understand in in these types of games how to make winning plays throughout the entire game, not in just certain moments, but the entire game, and that was what was missed today. 60 full minutes of, of complete football and not, and not just 45, 60 full minutes of complete football. I hope, I hope this is a really truly a building block and someone that talked about it in the locker room, Chris, I know you and Pat Walter from WREO in the locker room as well. You guys were part of that scrum with Derrek Brown. Chris, I love what he had to say regarding. How, what Bank of America was like tonight. This place was lit. This place was absolutely awesome tonight. The thank you fans, and it’s a little blurred out there for people that are watching this, but. He talked about, I love how he talked about it. This is the standard now. The way this place was rocking, this place was full, the way the fans were engaged, that should be the standard now. Like now, that’s your bar. Like this is your bar now, and it gives everyone truly an understanding of like, here’s a little taste of it. If you want more of it, you’re gonna have to work hard. and be better going into the offseason. This showed me that leadership is intact for the Carolina Panthers, uh, you know, inspired words from Derrek Brown, and you want to, we’ve been in the locker room when the season has ended. I’ve been in the locker room plenty of times when the season has ended, plenty of times I’ve been in that locker room. And specifically 2019, where the end of the season comes and those guys are like, thank God they’re ready to go home. I’m ready for my offseason, I’m ready to go to Cancun, I’m ready to chill. I got my paycheck, you know what I’m saying? I’m good. That wasn’t the feeling in that locker room, like it was, those guys had their heads up. And it felt like that they knew that they had him, and and we’ve got something here, and we could have gotten this game, um, here if we would have taken care of business and to have the uh the leadership of Derek Brown, to have the leadership of Bryce Young, to have the leadership of Nick Skorton that you talked about, you have the leadership of Te Aroa McMillan, like there’s a lot of maturity of the young guys, a lot of maturity. The, the, this team and this roster. is growing and that’s why I’m not hanging my head with this. I, I can’t come out here with good conscience and tear the Panthers down on anything because this team is absolutely growing and this was one hell of a playoff game, um, and it all starts with Derrek Brown, and then there’s others who are filling in as well. I’m, I’m so, I’m so happy to see the direction of the team for sure. The future’s bright. The future is bright for the team. We talked about it. We even said it even going into the last game of the season against Tampa Bay is that no one, no matter what happens, this is still a successful season as a whole because of the direction that they’re heading. But there are major question marks, and we’re definitely gonna get into that in the next episode when we have coming out on Thursday. But there are still major questions that we have. We’ve had this question a lot about this team. It’s, it’s the, it’s the defensive scheme. The defensive scheme in my eyes let them down late in the game. The defensive scheme late in the game, uh, yeah, but yeah, other parts of the game, but late in the game, the defensive scheme, which hasn’t changed, let them down. So like it was too easy moving the ball down the field, way too easy. No press, no like, no, none, none of those kinds of things. Nothing that made things difficult. It was too much of, let’s play prevent. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a tight game. You can’t just go into a shell because guess what? And a guy that’s probably gonna win the MVP, the betting favorite to win the MVP or one of the top two, picked you apart. Picked you apart. I wanna say this. Um, this is, I’m not bragging on JC, but in the last 67 games of the season, Mike Jackson is playing like the best cornerback on this team. And that, and that is, that is not to bring JC down. It’s more so to just talk about how well Mike Jackson is playing. But real quick, Remember before the season you talked to him one on one about like the opportunities. Like, man, I missed a lot of opportunities last season. I need to turn those into interceptions 5 interceptions, and I think what, tied for the league, league or at least the top 2 in terms of pass breakup of the season. Yeah, dude, like he played well, man. Like he was awesome again today. I brought that up to say that the defense had their moments. I mean, they had some great flashes. I think a lot of pop, um, in, in this particular game, more than I think we’ve seen in other losses of the season. And that’s another reason why I say this is the best loss of the season, because the defense had pop, and I go back to say there was pop despite the scheme that they’re playing in. There’s some stuff that just has to change, and at some point, like, I don’t want people to look at the pop from this game and say, well, maybe we can build on it, like, no, at what point do you realize, OK, maybe this is the ceiling, and maybe with another scheme or another person, maybe we get a little bit better than that, you know, maybe there’s some of the games that we lost earlier this season are wins because Some differences in the defense, maybe we’re getting off the field a little bit better, better on 3rd down, maybe we’re causing more turnovers, maybe we’re getting more sacks, all the things that the Carolina Panthers, we talked, we said they need to improve on. Um, so, that’s definitely a factor in this game, um, and it’s been a factor this entire season, and so that’s a huge question mark going into the offseason, because we saw at the very end, I was talking with the other couple of people that. That actually like cover the Rams and even some people that cover the Panthers about how late in the game McVeigh found, he’s like decided like, you know what, let’s actually work the middle of the field. Let’s work between the numbers and before I know you’re getting chunk plays, chunk plays, chunk plays. And there’s some, there’s some drops out there that the even the Rams themselves left out there for as well, like late in the first half, like Popunakua like goes off with two hands. I’m like that could have been a nail in the coffin right there for the Panthers. Yeah, that could have been massive. But you know what. The game is the game. It didn’t happen. It’s what it is. But overall, Chris, I know we had a lot of fun coming to games this season. This team was an up and down roller coaster to cover. We’re obviously gonna break down the offseason stuff a little bit more, but as the final game wraps up. This was a lot of fun this year. I mean, overall, I mean, it was frustrating. It was up and down, up and down. I, again, I still don’t know how good this Panthers team is as a whole. But they definitely were interesting, that’s for sure. They definitely were interesting. They definitely had their moments of great, they definitely had their moments of what the hell is going on. But overall, but going through the fire like this will make them even better. Oh, absolutely. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve now been through the fire. They’ve been experienced in these games. Like there are gonna be other teams that maybe. We have on paper better rosters, but now this team has been through it together, and the young folks, there’s gonna be a lot of people back next year on this roster, and now they’ve been through it, and they know what it feels like, and um I’m just excited about that, and I just gotta say also thank you to everybody who listens. I mean, like, I just want to say like we ran into a lot of you guys this season here at Bank of America Stadium, um, even when we’re not at Bank of America Stadium, we run into a lot of you guys. When I get recognized, I’m working for a local television station, I get mostly recognized from this show in Raleigh, in Greensboro, and in Charlotte, and you guys say thank you to us, I wanna say thank you to you. In 2025, we had A little under a million views, and that’s all because of you guys. Uh, you guys walk up to us, we took a lot of pictures with folks today, shout out to my man Omar that we met from California, his very first time in North Carolina, lifelong Carolina Panthers fan, never been here, from California, from Sacramento, but decided to come here. Uh, we took a picture as well, a lot of pictures of so many other people, man, like. Like you guys are amazing. You guys are great and you guys keep us going as well. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. We met a young guy, Matthew, um, who else I mean, uh, there’s Brian, there’s Adam, there’s Tom. There was a whole bunch of different guys, but there’s so many. Yeah, so there’s a bunch, I mean some guys like it was, uh, and women too, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just, it’s just a lot of awesome people. Thank you all so much. I know not everyone agrees with the takes and stuff that we have. We just, we just share our honest opinion. That’s what we’re here to do and we appreciate you guys interacting with us. And don’t worry, folks, just because the season is over doesn’t mean that we are going away. Don’t you, don’t you worry, folks. You stay locked in every Thursday morning, same time, same place. Stay locked in. Obviously, when the draft and free agency and all that stuff rolls around, we’ll definitely make sure we have more episodes and stuff for you all, but that’s why you gotta subscribe, folks, and leave the comments. Thank you all. Yo, Rock, Chris. You’re the man. Love you. Love you too, brother. It’s only right that we end it one way, you know. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. No, you go ahead. I, I, I gotta say something at the end. Go ahead. Oh, OK, I was gonna say we, we do love and appreciate you all. We’re gonna be so much. It’s gonna be fine. This one stinks. This one stinks, but you know what? It’s OK. I think this is gonna be OK. Cam Newton was here, all the legends were here. It was amazing. The only thing we can say to end this thing, Dennis. Keep pounding.
