Examining the wreckage of another late Panthers collapse at Vikings
By Dean Jones
What went wrong for the Carolina Panthers?
It wasn’t exactly a first half that will live long in the memory at U.S. Bank Stadium. The Carolina Panthers started the game in a sluggish fashion on offense, which left their defensive unit needing to make some big plays to keep them in the game.
This is a trend they continued in the third quarter with Jeremy Chinn‘s two touchdowns in consecutive plays, which was an NFL first for a defender. It gave them a foundation to achieve success. But once the cracks began to show, the Panthers reverted to type.
Simply put, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.
They couldn’t get stops on defense, managed the game inefficiently, struggled on offense late on, and eventually missed a game-winning field goal attempt.
Absolutely devastating, to put it mildly.
This collective mentality is a concern. Maybe not to the extent we’ve seen with the Atlanta Falcons earlier this season, but it isn’t far off.
Whether it is a little late in the day to change things this season is up for debate. Carolina will get plenty of time to eradicate this issue during their bye week and what we see from them over the last four games will tell us plenty about just what sort of resolve is residing within the locker room.