The Panthers were averaging 139.7 per game as a team, fifth in the league, and Dowdle was the main part of that.
He had 735 rushing yards entering the game and was averaging 5.6 per carry. So this was a dramatic departure, and the Panthers’ offense wasn’t able to adjust.
“I mean, when you can’t play complementary football, when we can’t move the ball in the run game, it just makes everything harder,” center Cade Mays said. “Harder on the defense, harder on us, harder on everybody.
“I mean, obviously they respected our run game, and we didn’t do good enough today to get it going and get the offense going.”
The Panthers were starting their eighth different offensive line in 10 games, but they were all known commodities, with Austin Corbett at right guard, and Mays and right tackle Taylor Moton back in the starting lineup after missing last week. They’ve run with this group.
“Oh man, like any other team, you’ve just got to go back, see what we did wrong, see what the defense did and adjust to it, got to make adjustments,” left guard Damien Lewis said. “The Saints got a great defense, they played some good ball today, I took my hat off to them.
“They came to play, we’ve got to go back and watch film and get back to work, see what we can do better.”