After Panthers’ ugly home loss to Cardinals, some ‘bests’ (yes, they exist) and ‘worsts’
A loss like the Carolina Panthers’ 26-16 home defeat at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals lends itself to a lot of worsts in our weekly bests and worsts tally. But every game has its ups and downs, so just to keep it fresh, we’ll start with a best. And then, I’ll warn you, it’s going to go downhill pretty fast.
BEST NEWCOMER: Give some credit to Eddy Pineiro, thrust into a weird situation when Carolina’s regular kicker, Zane Gonzalez, managed to hurt himself while warming up on the sideline during the preseason. Pineiro won the job, had a couple of iffy outings in practice and has since kicked the ball beautifully when it has counted most. He has yet to miss a field goal or extra point in four games and made a career-long 54-yarder Sunday. If the Panthers (1-3) were playing better, people would be singing Pineiro’s praises.
WORST SUBSTITUTION GROUP: The starting wide receivers were no great shakes on Sunday, but their subs were even worse. One week after Laviska Shenault Jr. broke a game open with a 67-yard touchdown on a 5-yard pass, he barely played, touched the ball once on a direct snap from center and gained zero yards on the play. Veteran Rashard Higgins also barely played, but botched an exchange on what was supposed to be a double reverse, causing a turnover (which was unfairly charged to Baker Mayfield). And Shi Smith, who was supposed to be one of the Panthers’ breakout stars, had two targets, didn’t catch either one and also had zero yards.
Total yardage from the line of scrimmage for Shenault, Higgins and Smith? Zero.
BEST AND WORST USAGE: Christian McCaffrey. How do you only give McCaffrey eight carries, after he went for 100-plus rushing yards in each of the past two games? Part of this was because Carolina was a combined 3-for-13 on third and fourth downs and so the Panthers only ran a total of 51 plays, but still. The Panthers did make up for this to a certain extent by having Mayfield throw the ball nine times to No. 22. He caught all nine, for 81 yards and a TD.
WORST TREND: How is it that short quarterbacks like Drew Brees and Russell Wilson find their way around the tall trees on defensive lines, but Baker Mayfield manages to hit those trees so often with his passes? Mayfield had five passes batted at the line Sunday, and one of those turned into what coach Matt Rhule called a “back-breaking” interception — one of Mayfield’s three turnovers on the day.
WORST PENALTY: We’ll go with a two-way tie on this one. Cornerback C.J. Henderson, who is supposed to be one of the Panthers’ better defensive players but sure gives up a lot of receptions, made sure he didn’t give up a long ball against Arizona by outright tackling receiver Marquise Brown. The accompanying 37-yard penalty broke open the floodgates for Arizona, moving the Cardinals into position for their first TD of the day.
But was this really any worse than Carolina linebacker Damien Wilson running downfield and thus becoming ineligible on a well-executed fourth-down fake punt by Johnny Hekker? Rhule would explain this later by saying some of the Panther players believed they were running a fake and some of them didn’t. That would be…. not good, and the penalty negated one of the Panthers’ few exciting plays of the day.
WORST STAT: Lots to choose from here, but the most damning is that the Panthers are 1-10 in their last 11 games, dating back to finishing last year on a seven-game losing skid. That’s a whole lot of losing, which makes it quite understandable the Panthers’ offense got booed off the field several times Sunday.
A close second: The Panthers are now 1-26 under Rhule when allowing 17 or more points. This speaks to the offensive futility during Rhule’s entire tenure.
BEST PLAYER IN A LOSING CAUSE: Linebacker Frankie Luvu, who had a 33-yard interception return for a pick-6 TD and also led Carolina in tackles with 11, including one forearm shiver that looked like something straight out of a pro wrestling card.
WORST SCHEDULE: The Panthers are now 1-3 after what was supposed to be the “easy” start to their schedule.
Coming up next: home against San Francisco, away against defending Super Bowl champion L.A. Rams and then home vs. Tom Brady and Tampa Bay. With the way the Panthers are performing right now, a 1-6 record after that trio certainly seems like a good possibility.
WORST MOOD: Mayfield was obviously perturbed after the game, and was asked if he was more “p----ed off” than usual by this loss. His full quote: “When you turn the ball over that many times when you lose — when you should have won the game and I feel like we should have won the game — it should p--- me off. I should never be happy with losing and I never will be. So this does p--- me off. I expect more out of this group. I expect more out of myself. We are going to stick together. That is really all I care about. We are going to keep going, we are going to figure it out. We are going to find a way to win.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2022 at 12:00 PM with the headline "After Panthers’ ugly home loss to Cardinals, some ‘bests’ (yes, they exist) and ‘worsts’."
