Carolina Panthers’ improbable win over Green Bay Packers worth the extra pump
You’re supposed to get two pumps. That’s the joke. The third pump gets you the flag.
Rico Dowdle knew it. He’s seen the “Key and Peele” skit his touchdown celebration so aptly mimicked. The officials, on Sunday, clearly had not. They flagged Dowdle for excessive celebration after his second touchdown of the day, sending the extra point out of range, into the wind on a gusty day at Lambeau Field.
That single lost point proved pivotal, but not fatal. Delightful, not disastrous. In part because Dowdle answered for his own exuberance, and in part because Bryce Young saved his best for last, the Carolina Panthers still recorded a historic win over the Green Bay Packers, the most improbable of their four wins in the past five games.
It should have been a one-point win, but Dowdle and Young overcame the Packers’ only touchdown with a game-winning drive for a 49-yard Ryan Fitzgerald field goal as time expired and a 16-13 upset.
They overcame inappropriate pelvic thrusting — to use a phrase never before associated with a Panthers star — and overcame NFL officials’ inability to grasp a pop-culture reference to get above .500 after nine games for the first time since 2019. They were 5-4 that season after a loss at the Packers, the first of eight losses to close out the season and the Ron Rivera era.
It’s too soon to say this feels like the beginning of a different era, there’s too much work clearly still to do, but it is the kind of win that can galvanize a team, to come into Lambeau and not only shut down the Packers’ offense, but shove the ball down their throats, right to the final second. This is a win that can build something, if the Panthers can take advantage of it.
“That’s why you play football,” Young said. “Everyone’s in the backyard when you’re a kid, wishing you’re in a historic stadium like this with a chance to go win the game, and you get to live out those dreams.”
The Panthers did everything they needed to do to pull off the upset, letting Dowdle pound away and leaning heavily on a defense having an out-of-body experience on key third and fourth downs in the red zone, and still had to find a way to deliver more, all because someone didn’t get the joke.
The joke is this: You get two pumps. In the comedy sketch, Hingle McCringleberry spins the ball on the ground, then “shoots” his teammates with pelvic thrusts. One, two, fine. After his third, he’s flagged for excessive celebration.
Dowdle got dinged after his second, much to the amusement of Adam Amin and Greg Olsen in the Fox broadcast booth. They got the joke. “Gotta be three!” one of them said, sotto voce.
Two pumps, right? You get two pumps?
“That’s my understanding,” Dowdle said. “From my understanding and everything I’ve learned. We go over stuff like this every week in the meeting room. I definitely think you’re supposed to get two pumps. I hope I don’t get a fine.”
The Panthers had relied on Dowdle to keep the ball out of Jordan Love’s hands for most of the game, grinding down the clock — and Young’s hands for that matter, on a blustery day when he was more or less limited to shorter-range passes, 11-of-20 with 19 of his 102 yards on the final drive. Five yards and a cloud of dust was good enough, especially behind a patchwork offensive line that got Chandler Zavala back before losing him again.
And when Love did have the ball, he couldn’t do much with it, with the defense holding the Packers to a pair of field goals until a five-minute, 71-play drive tied the score at 13. It was the first time all afternoon the Panthers’ defense failed to get a stop in a critical moment, whether that was Christian Rozeboom forcing a fumble, Tre’von Moehrig running down an errant Love lob or Mike Jackson dropping an interception in the end zone, albeit on fourth down.
“A lot to learn from, but again, just building the confidence of this group,” Panthers coach Dave Canales said. “If we play our style of ball and keep ourselves in it, we’ll give ourselves a chance to finish the way we want to.”
It was a performance good enough to beat a Super Bowl hopeful on the road, and 14 points would have done it, but thanks to Dowdle’s penalty, they only had 13 and needed one last drive to win it and avoid overtime. Which, it turned out, was no joke.
Dowdle busted loose for a first down with 40 seconds to play after Young decoyed putting him in pass protection, and those 19 yards put the Panthers in position to kick a field goal after they’d won the coin flip and maneuvered to get the wind at the end.
Ryan Fitzgerald knocked it through. The Panthers silenced the shocked crowd. And Dowdle had one last big run to cap a day when he ran for 130 yards and two touchdowns. And two pumps.
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This story was originally published November 2, 2025 at 4:31 PM with the headline "Carolina Panthers’ improbable win over Green Bay Packers worth the extra pump."
