The Week 1 script was different, but the ending was the same for the Carolina Panthers—who have now lost five straight regular-season openers.
This time around, in a 59-37 defeat to the Chicago Bears, we watched a Jekyll and Hyde story—with quarterback Bryce Young and Carolina's offense playing the hero and defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and his unit cast as the scapegoats.
What does that come out to? According to Josh Edwards at CBS Sports, the Panthers deserve a 'C' grade for Week 1:
The good news is that Bryce Young suddenly looks like a budding star. He torched the Bears' defense for 361 yards and three touchdowns, and if he keeps playing this well, the Panthers should be able to compete for the NFC South title, a division where all four
teams are currently 0-1. The even better news is that Jalen Coker seems to have finally figured things out: The third-year receiver went off for a career-high 138 receiving yards and two touchdowns against the Bears. Now, the bad news for Carolina: The defense was bad — very bad . . .
If we had to break that down phase by phase, it would come out to an A- for the offense and an F- on defense.
Offensive coordinator Brad Idzik did a brilliant job in his first game calling plays at the NFL level. He got the tight ends involved in the passing game, he called runs at the right spots and he helped Young have his best Week 1 performance of his four-year career.
On the other side of the ball, Evero was simply overwhelmed in his chess match with Bears head coach Ben Johnson. The Panthers allowed a franchise-record 59 points along with 552 yards of total offense.
To be fair, the Bears are going to embarrass a lot of defenses this season—and Evero doesn't have all the pieces to compete with an offense like that. Still, the number of mistakes that the group made was pretty close to unforgivable. Evero has to get this defense playing at a much higher level in the weeks to come, or the calls for his job will start to be justified.
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This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers earn mediocre grade for season opener
