Every ounce of momentum the Carolina Panthers have generated this season has been met with a bone-jarring stop. That hurt all the more last night in their 20-9 loss to the San Francisco 49ers when the Panthers were
presented with a gift wrapped and golden opportunity to win their first primetime game in two years and take the division lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in late November for the first time in ten years. A battered to hell and back offensive line, Bryce Young, and Dave Canales couldn’t score more than three points in the first half despite three incredible turnovers. The offense was similarly unable to find any real momentum in the second half. Injuries piled up on an already hurting defense. That left the Panthers, out of gas, trying to fill up their burlap bag at the pump with what looked like a complete lack of understanding as to how you actually compete in a three-legged race.
That has been more or less the story of each of the Panthers’ losses this season. Some combination of injuries, questionable leadership, and an absent passing game have left an otherwise improving team bereft of any competitive hope. Every time the team wins it looks like they might be figuring it out and every time they lose it makes us question how they have won any games at all—let alone six.
What I liked. . .
The defense
The unit as a whole gets a giant shout out here. Down two starting linebackers who already felt like scraping the bottom of the talent barrel, the Panthers showed up to play team football, rallying to the ball on every down, and limited Christian McCaffrey to 3.7 yards per carry and 142 all-purpose yards on 31 touches. That man could have put up 300 yards easily with that kind of volume against the Panthers beleaguered defense.
On top of that, Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson in coverage basically eliminated the forward pass from the 49ers playbook while they were on the field. This was the perfect performance, truly as good as you could have asked for, to put the Panthers in a strong position to win on Monday Night Football against a better built and better coached team. I hate that it was wasted, but I loved watching that first half before the injuries to Claudin Cherilus. Corey Thornton, and Horn changed the game.
Speaking of those injuries, as much as I hated watching them happen, I was impressed that the defense managed to hold on afterwards as well as they did. They held the 49ers to only ten points in the second half and forced a punt after Young’s fourth quarter interception to keep the game alive.
I don’t know what happens next season, but I do know that I want to see Ejiro Evero coaching this defense with another year’s worth of talent infusion by Dan Morgan and Brandt Tilis.
What I didn’t like. . .
Bryce Young
I don’t think there is much left to say. There are plenty of legitimate excuses to make for him. Tons of balls were tipped last night—something that isn’t 100% on his height. His offensive line was hurt and less effective than expected against a formerly anemic 49ers pass rush. His receivers dropped catchable balls that were accurately thrown.
And he still put up only 28 yards passing in the first half with his average depth of target being behind the line of scrimmage. I need to go back and check, but I’m not confident he completed a pass beyond the line of scrimmage until the third quarter.
It’s one thing when you have to play around new problems and your team makes new mistakes some of the time. It’s another thing when you make the same mistakes and fall into the same traps every game. After 41 games, I think it is clear that the excuses we have to keep making to justify Young’s play are closer to a description of his ceiling than an indicator of some vast, untapped potential.
Dave Canales
In that same vein, it is getting harder to judge Canales’ performance this season. On the one hand, he is coaching a team that has one leg and one hand tied behind its back. On the other, his goal line and short yardage decision making still leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t tell if he is trying to motivate his team by giving them the opportunity to succeed against the odds or if he is trying to put enough of Young being bad in key moments on tape so that he has an iron-clad case to move on come January.
The Carolina Panthers are greatly improved over last year. They are more disciplined, more talented, and more resilient than any Panthers team we have seen in a long time. Canales deserves credit for that. That improvement has seen them win six games through 12 weeks and has them in competition for the dubious honor of the NFC South crown. But bad play calls and too much trust in Young in critical moments have held them back from being even better.
Canales has learned some over the course of the season. We’re seeing fewer empty backfields on 4th & short with Young under center, for example. And maybe he didn’t want to run the ball on 1st & Goal from the one yard line because of the unreliability of the current offensive line. Maybe Canales is growing as a very young coach, but he has burned a lot of credit with fans this season.
Tre’von Moehrig
Moehrig’s play last night left nothing to be desired. He was a huge part of how the defense held together and limited McCaffrey as much as they did. What Horn was in coverage, Moehrig was last night against the run. However, as the clock was winding down, Moehrig punched 49ers receiver Jauan Jennings in the crotch. It was a dirty, selfish, and stupid move that will likely see him suspended for at least one game.
What’s next. . .
The Panthers will need to limp through hosting the Los Angeles Rams on a short week before their bye week. The Rams game almost qualifies as a trap game because of the all important week off looming right afterwards. Carolina needs rest and the opportunity to revisit what has and has not worked this season before facing three divisional games in the final four weeks of their season. It doesn’t qualify as a trap game because the Panthers can’t be caught overlooking an opponent that towers above them.
The fact is that the Panthers will likely enter their bye week at 6-7 and at least a half game back in the NFC South. That’s an incredible place for them to be after starting the season 0-2. The season-long view of this team is that their rebuild is ahead of schedule at almost every position on the roster, quarterback excepted. They have the same one big question entering the 2026 off season that they have had entering every offseason since 2018. On the one hand, searching for a quarterback gets old. On the other hand, Morgan has shown a competency in free agency and the draft that has been hitherto unheard of in the Carolinas. Even an average mind choosing the Panthers next quarterback could prove a huge upgrade. And, on the other other hand, this season has been fun and it may continue to be fun through December. The Panthers have proven that a bad game one week does not guarantee a bad game the next week or the next month. Barring a surprise surge from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, we’re going to watch the Carolina Panthers compete for their division’s title. We might watch them compete all the way through Week 18. I’ll take that over the barren years under Matt Rhule and Frank Reich any day.
