This one should have ended with “Sweet Caroline” blasting from the Bank of America Stadium speakers and Matt Rhule passing out game balls in the locker room.
Instead, Rhule was ruing the Panthers’ inability to make big plays, while a short time later offensive tackle Taylor Moton stood with his head down and said what everyone was thinking.
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“It hurts,” Moton said. “This one hurts for sure.”
Rhule said it was hard to point to one player in assigning blame following the Panthers’ 21-18 loss — they led by 12 late in the third quarter — to Philadelphia on Sunday, their second consecutive loss to an NFC East opponent.
But it wasn’t difficult to pinpoint where this game turned on the Panthers, who dropped to 3-2, exactly where they were after five games during Rhule’s inaugural NFL season.
Breaking down the disastrous, fourth-quarter sequence when everything that could have gone wrong for the Panthers, did go wrong.
Panthers ball, third-and-3 at their 46, 4:04 remaining
Leading 18-13, the Panthers were in their so-called, four-minute offense, looking for a couple of first downs to salt away the win. After two runs by Chuba Hubbard, the Panthers faced third down. And as has often been the case this season, quarterback Sam Darnold and wideout Robby Anderson — teammates with the Jets — failed to connect.
Anderson was open near the sideline beyond the first-down marker. Darnold’s pass was low, forcing Anderson to dive for it. The ball bounced off Anderson’s hands, although Rhule and Darnold said this one was on the quarterback.
“That was a bad ball,” Rhule said. “Robby came open. We have to throw and catch.”
“I missed him, just missed him. I’ve gotta put the ball on him,” Darnold said. “Perfect call, just gotta put it on him.”
That play loomed especially large because of what happened next.
Panthers ball, fourth-and-3 at their 46, 4:00 remaining
Second-year punter Joseph Charlton hadn’t had a particularly good game, averaging 37.8 yards on his first five punts, with a net of 27.8. The Eagles had nearly blocked one of Charlton’s earlier punts, and this time there was no almost about it.
The Eagles ran a stunt opposite long snapper J.J. Jansen, with backup linebackers Shaun Bradley and T.J. Edwards looping around each other. Sean Chandler, the Panthers’ personal protector on punts, knocked Bradley off his rush. But Jansen, the Panthers’ longest-tenured player, lost his balance when Bradley shoved him on his way past, giving Edwards a clear path to Charlton.
Edwards blocked the punt cleanly, and Bradley recovered at the Panthers’ 27. The Eagles were in business.
BLOCKED#PHIvsCAR | #FlyEaglesFly
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/Nu5h8JfTue
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) October 10, 2021
“They ran a pick stunt. Champ (Chandler’s nickname) came in and blocked one. The other guy came around J.J. He came free and blocked it,” Rhule said. “We practiced that a lot. We have to make those blocks. We didn’t make those blocks. They made the play.”
Charlton said he felt the Eagles’ rush on the earlier punt where they threatened to block it, but not on the last one. “I didn’t really see it. I punted the ball, heard it get blocked, turned around and saw it on the ground,” Charlton said. “So I’m not really sure where (the rush) came from.”
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It was the first time the Panthers had allowed a blocked punt since Nov. 30, 2014, when they infamously allowed two blocks for touchdowns in a 31-13 loss at Minnesota — a game played outside in freezing temperatures at the University of Minnesota.
They’d gone nearly seven years without a blocked punt, but this one was a killer.
“We knew that if we got a certain look from them, if they blocked it a certain way, that we could switch it and go to a different kind of rush,” Edwards said. “Shaun Bradley picked the hip and I was free. It was just like how we drew it up.”
Eagles ball, second-and-9 at the Carolina 26, 3:09 remaining
The Panthers’ defense had been solid in sudden-change situations, allowing only three points off Darnold’s first two interceptions. But Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts found a hole in the secondary on a play when Panthers defensive coordinator Phil Snow had Brian Burns, one of his two best pass-rushers, drop back into coverage.
Hurts hit tight end Dallas Goedert between Burns and the safety, and the 20-yard gain gave Philadelphia first-and-goal at the 6.
“I mean, they got the ball in the red zone. We had some things that we were trying to do. But they just made the plays when they were supposed to,” cornerback Donte Jackson said. “Hurts made a good pass to the tight end. … Then he was able to run it in.”
Eagles ball, second-and-goal at the 6, 2:42 remaining
Hurts, the second-year quarterback from Alabama, came into the game as the Eagles’ leading rusher. But he’d been relatively quiet through the first 3 1/2 quarters, giving the ball to running back Miles Sanders on the zone-read plays rather than pulling it and running around the edge.
It was almost like Nick Sirianni was saving those plays. On the Eagles’ possession before the blocked punt, Hurts twice kept the ball on read plays for gains of 14 and 6 yards.
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“We weren’t in a flow in the first half … so we went to a little bit of the quarterback read game and got some good plays off it,” Sirianni said. “Good job by him.”
After an incompletion to Goedert on first-and-goal, the Eagles went back to a read play. When Hurts pulled the ball and kept it, he had a walk-in touchdown and Philadelphia had its first lead at 19-18. Hurts then DeVonta Smith for the two-point conversion and the Eagles led by 3.
Panthers edge rusher Haason Reddick said Hurts’ late runs were a big factor. “Mobile quarterback, we knew that coming into the game,” Reddick said. “It seemed like we were stuffing it at first when he wasn’t keeping it, then he started keeping it. Had a couple plays off of it. Some of them hurt us.”
Panthers ball, first-and-20 from their 35, 2:03 left
With left tackle Cam Erving out with a neck injury, the Panthers reconfigured their line, sliding Moton to the left side and giving rookie Brady Christensen his first start at right tackle. Christensen gave up one of the Eagles’ three sacks on Darnold, but a lot of the Panthers’ offensive line issues were on the interior.
Right guard John Miller allowed a sack, and his holding penalty near the two minute-mark put the Panthers in a tough down-and-distance. Darnold had gone to Anderson on two consecutive plays — hitting him over the middle for 25 to convert a third-and-15 before an incompletion on Miller’s first-down holding flag.
Darnold looked to Anderson a third time. It was not a charm, as cornerback Steven Nelson broke in front of Anderson’s comeback route to intercept Darnold in front of the Eagles’ sideline. Nelson indicated he knew what was coming.
“I felt like they were trying to get the ball to a speed guy. I think the play previously before that they went to the same guy,” he said. “That guy has been lining up in that formation all day. I just kind of read the play before it even happened and made the play.”
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Rhule also seemed to suggest the Panthers went to the well once too often.
“We’re throwing comebacks to the sideline. When you’re in two-minute, you’re throwing enough of those. Last week (at Dallas), the guy broke on it and almost picked it off,” he said.
“I’ll have to watch the tape, to be honest with you. But we have to attack maybe the middle of the field a little bit more,” Rhule added. “We did a nice job of hitting Robby on the in-cut, so we have to do a better job of it.”
After Darnold’s fifth pick in two games, an animated Anderson lost his composure on the sideline, where he appeared to be yelling at receivers coach Frisman Jackson. Said Darnold: “I’m gonna keep that between Robby and everyone that was involved.”
Robby Anderson is visibly upset on the Panthers sideline right now. pic.twitter.com/JBFrfhcoL6
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 10, 2021
The Panthers’ line has allowed eight sacks and 19 hits on Darnold over the past two games, when Darnold has played without Christian McCaffrey, a welcome security blanket when the protection breaks down. But Darnold, who had only had one INT during the Panthers’ 3-0 start, said he has to be better.
“I’ve gotta keep staying patient,” Darnold said. “I think that’s the biggest thing, is pressing too much.”
With three timeouts left, the Panthers had a chance to stop the Eagles (2-3) and get the ball back. But a defense that had played so well most of the day, let running backs Miles Sanders and Kenneth Gainwell get the edge on three plays and the Eagles ran out the clock.
The loss spoiled a big day from Jackson, who had an interception, a forced fumble and six tackles. Jackson, who’s a free agent after this season, used a boxing metaphor to describe the defeat.
“We’ve gotta win fights, not just football games. We’ve gotta go in preparing for a 12-round fight. We didn’t really fulfill that in the last two games,” Jackson said. “We let some rounds go, and it shows when you’re playing against Dallas with an explosive offensive and the Eagles with an explosive offense. It shows when you take those rounds off, and they’re gonna be still swinging.”
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The Panthers didn’t lose this one on points. They were completely knocked out in the 11th round.
Can they get up or are they in the midst of another long losing streak that derailed Rhule’s first season?
I’d lean toward the former, but the way Sunday’s game played out didn’t inspire much confidence.
(Photo: Douglas DeFelice / USA Today)
