The Carolina Panthers showed up on the west coast to a San Francisco 49ers team that was in a generous mood. The 49ers were determined to gift the Panthers a primetime victory, a 8-6 record and top position
in the NFC South.
Instead, the Panthers did what has now become the completely expected thing after they’ve earned a morsel of respect from their fans and the national media – they embarrassed themselves. Only this time, it happened in front of every football fan in America who decided to tune in to the one game on television.
Call it whiplash inducing, or Jekyll and Hyde, or even consistently inconsistent. Despite sitting at .500 after 12 games in the season, it remains impossible to define who the Panthers are at any given moment. The effort is there, players seem to be put into positions to win and many of them even take advantage of the opportunities set in front of them.
Then there are others. Those who treat praise like a sleeper cell hearing an activation phrase that triggers their objective to sabotage a perfectly acceptable football team.
Whether the actual reason is a lapse in concentration, an inability to handle pressure, a lack of preparation, or any combination of the above or something else entirely – one thing remains true: it cannot keep happening. For this week’s game review, let’s take a look at the major on-field errors that tilted the game away from the Panthers from Monday night and that we’ve seen before:
Bryce Young Backbreaking redzone turnover
Tetairoa McMillan crucial drop on 3rd down
Momentum killing late game turnover by Young
Xavier Legette losing track of the sideline
Are there other costly errors and ill-timed injuries that were not included? Yes, plenty of them. Almost too many to count. But when the same units or players continue to not learn from the same mistakes, that’s where the major problem lies. Once is an accident, many more than that becomes a trend. Trends that will have to be broken should the Panthers want to have any chance in defeating the juggernaut of a Los Angeles Rams team coming up on Sunday.
