Carolina collapse: How Panthers managed to blow big lead and wreck their playoff hopes
The Carolina Panthers blew it big-time on Sunday, and in doing so wrecked their playoff chances, too.
On the road, the Panthers had Tampa Bay on the ropes. Carolina boasted leads of 14-0 in the second quarter and 21-10 in the fourth quarter.
But then Tom Brady did Tom Brady things, and the Panthers did Panthers things. And when all that was done, Carolina had collapsed and the Buccaneers had won, 30-24.
Carolina’s worst idea in this game was deciding it would try to single-cover Tampa Bay star Mike Evans on deep routes with the variety of poor NFL cornerbacks it employed Sunday after the team’s best cover guy, Jaycee Horn, broke his wrist last week.
Evans gladly whipped C.J. Henderson twice and Keith Taylor Jr. once on deep touchdown throws from Brady. By the time those footballs finally stopped sailing over the Panthers’ heads, Evans had a 207-yard receiving day and touchdowns of 30, 57 and 63 yards.
“They gave us a lot of one-on-one coverage, and we took advantage,” Evans said on Fox Sports’ postgame show.
On one of those TDs, Henderson got beaten deep and then didn’t even try to tackle Evans, jogging slowly behind him. It was embarrassing, and he should have been pulled from the game at least for a series due to the lack of effort.
Couple Evans’ three TDs with three Sam Darnold turnovers — two on fumbles and one on an underthrown interception — and the Panthers’ house of cards met its hurricane.
The Panthers did play well at times Sunday and had chances throughout, including at the very end. Carolina got a late field goal to pull within six points but then couldn’t recover an onside kick with 0:58 to go, down 30-24. The defense then stopped Tampa Bay, however, to force a punt in the final minute.
But Tampa Bay punter Jake Camarda then made the play of the game, recovering a bad snap that could have given the Panthers possession around midfield or better and somehow getting off a crazy, on-the-full-run kick. Ultimately, Carolina only had 26 seconds to try to go 92 yards for a game-winning touchdown.
Darnold couldn’t do that, as a final-play series of laterals fell about 40 yards short, and the Panthers (6-10) saw their playoff hopes end with a thud.
Tampa Bay (8-8) won the NFC South behind the ageless Brady and will host a first-round playoff game in two weeks, likely against Dallas. Carolina was selling “just in case” theoretical playoff tickets to its fans this week. But its final game, the regular-season finale at New Orleans on Jan. 8, will only count for pride and draft position (Carolina would currently draft No. 9 in the first round if the season had ended Sunday). The Panthers have officially missed the playoffs for the fifth straight year.
You know what’s really remarkable?
It was 19 years ago that the 26-year-old Brady, playing for New England, edged Carolina by a field goal in the 38th Super Bowl by throwing for 354 yards and directing the Patriots to 18 fourth-quarter points.
This time, at age 45, Brady threw for 432 yards and directed Tampa Bay to 20 fourth-quarter points.
In other words, at 45, Brady was statistically better than he was in a Super Bowl against the same team 19 years ago.
And even though Darnold was very good himself at moments — 341 yards and three TD passes, all of them gorgeously thrown — he had those three turnovers and Brady didn’t have any. On the final one, rookie left tackle Ickey Ekwonu badly missed a block, which led to a strip-sack with 2:32 to go.
Carolina had whipped Tampa Bay and Brady, 21-3, on Oct. 23 in Charlotte. But this time Carolina’s defense didn’t have enough answers, as stars like Brian Burns and Jeremy Chinn were rarely heard from and Brady kept picking apart the Carolina secondary, as he has done so many times to so many NFL teams.
Panthers interim head coach Steve Wilks said on one of Evans’ three touchdowns that Carolina was in Cover-2 and that the safety cheated to the middle of the field (he didn’t specify which one). But even so, the Panthers had former Pro Bowl cornerback Josh Norman on the sideline, and he could have subbed in for Henderson or Taylor, but didn’t — because, Wilks said, the coaching staff decided it didn’t want “to put him in a strange situation like that.”
The Panthers should have tried it, though, because it couldn’t have been worse. Carolina’s secondary (also missing Donte Jackson due to injury) looked totally overmatched for that 20-point Tampa Bay fourth quarter after hanging in there for the first three periods.
Wilks dropped to 5-6 as Carolina’s interim head coach. I still believe he should get the job on a permanent basis, but he made some errors in this one. The Panthers pride themselves on not giving up the big play, and in this game that’s about all they did. They also weren’t able to run the ball, much like in the Pittsburgh game on Dec. 18. Tampa Bay sold out, daring Carolina to win via the pass, and the Panthers couldn’t.
The Panthers aren’t built to win when they’re not running for at least 100 yards per game. This time they only had 74.
That meant it was Darnold vs. Brady. And we know who’s going to win that one.
This story was originally published January 1, 2023 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Carolina collapse: How Panthers managed to blow big lead and wreck their playoff hopes."
