We all know the score, but what do we want to see next?
We all know the score from yesterday’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons. We mostly knew it before the opening kickoff: a tattered Carolina Panthers defense was always going to allow the Falcons to score on almost every possession. A talented, but still gelling Panthers offense missing a sizeable portion of its starting offensive line was never going to keep up.
Yet keep up they almost did, in spite of too many penalties on faces old and new along the line, Andy Dalton, Chuba Hubbard, Dionate Johnson, and Xavier Legette had the Panthers within striking distance of the Falcons until late in the fourth quarter. That was nice.
This team isn’t capable of closing out games like that, or coming back from even larger deficits, for a wide variety of reasons. Most of the team’s problems come back to on field talent. Poor drafting and injuries have combined to make one the team’s larger issue into its only real one. It’s no wonder, when asked how good the team is, a plurality (34%) of fans responded that the team was “too hurt to tell.”
This story is old at this point. After years of being just plain bad and unable to score points, the Panthers can now score points but still can’t win games. It is more fun this way, but it also stalls out a lot of the talk of hope that we used to quietly huff together after our losses. The road to improvement is obvious and there is no way to immediately traverse it. Progress is going to take time.
So that brings me to y’all, our dearest readers. Next season looks brighter than any in recent memory, which is great, but does nothing for us now. This season is lost, the remaining value in it lies in evaluating what talent the team does have so as to prepare for the future. Start some fights down in the comments and tell us who you want to see the offense lean on for experience: is it Ja’Tavion Sanders? Bryce Young again?
Should the Panthers extend Johnson and then sit him to prevent injury? Do we need to see a week or two of force feeding the Jonathan Mingo show?
Get creative. Have some fun. Draw incredibly arbitrary lines in the sand. For myself, I know I want to see each receiver on the roster have a game where they are treated like the number one to see how they respond. Once even Jalen Coker has had his day in the sun, they ought to turn the reins back to Bryce Young, gas him up, and see if that horse can fly. It’s that or 11 games of the Chuba Hubbard Wildcat Show.
What have y’all got?