The Great Gano: Kicker drills game-winner as Panthers down Giants
The Panthers win a wild one behind some key moments…
It was a wild one at Bank of America Stadium on Sunday and luckily for the Carolina Panthers, they came out on the winning end of things.
The Giants would be the ones to get on the board first. Via a field goal from Aldrick Rosas, they took an early 3-0 lead. That capped a drive that lasted six plays and 2:57. Curtis Samuel put the good guys ahead on a 25-yard touchdown snag from Cam Newton that gave the Carolina Panthers a 7-3 advantage. It was nice to see Samuel get in on the action early as he rejoined a deep group of wideouts. That would be all the tallies for the first frame, setting up the stage for a wild second quarter.
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In the second frame, the Panthers took advantage of a “Giant” mistake. Odell Beckham Jr. muffed a punt, and Colin Jones got on his horse and recovered the ball which had rolled into the end zone for a touchdown. That gave the Panthers a 14-3 lead and they appeared to be in the driver’s seat of the game. They added to their lead when Graham Gano would provide the next scoring boost. He drilled a 47-yard field goal to make it a 17-3 contest.
However, New York would strike back. The Giants pulled off trickery of sorts as they tried a razzle dazzle play. Beckham Jr. took the ball out of the backfield and played the role of Eli Manning, slinging the ball to a wide-open Saquon Barkley for a 57-yard touchdown. This was kind of ironic, given Beckham’s comments about Manning earlier in the week. In any event, that put the Giants back in the game as the Panther lead shrunk down to 17-10. Field goals by Rosas and Gano would take the teams to halftime, with the Panthers holding a 20-13 lead.
The third quarter was relatively quiet, a streak contrast to the first half. A Rosas field goal would make it a 20-16 game, inching the Giants closer. If the third quarter could be considered a stalemate, the the fourth quarter was a shootout. Christian McCaffrey got the ball rolling for the Panthers as he was on the receiving end of a 27-yard pass to paydirt. That made it a 27-16 game. The Giants would come storming back however as OBJ would get back in the action. He caught a 33-yard pass to make it a 27-24 game. The Panthers got into a rhythm a bit on their next drive as they compiled a 12-play, 54-yard drive that ended in a Gano field goal from 39 yards out.
However, as they had the entire game, the Giants would strike again. Barkley was on the receiving end of a touchdown pass from 15 yards out and with the extra point, the Giants now had a 31-30 lead with just a little over a minute left.
Ever since Graham Gano got that new contract back in March, I have been looking for a moment that just reassures me that giving all that money to a kicker was the right move. He gave that moment to me Sunday. The Carolina Panthers had a nice drive going in which they methodically moved the football eight plays for 30 yards in under a minute. That set up the stage for Gano who had ice In his veins as he nailed a 63-yard field goal to give the Panthers the win.
With the win, Carolina improves to 3-1 on the year while the Giants drop to 1-4 . The Panthers next game is against the Redskins next Sunday at 1:00 PM.