Carolina Panthers were dangerously unprepared for Week 1 mauling at the Saints

It is incredibly hard to focus on just one thing when a game goes this poorly. However, the Carolina Panthers' extreme failings at the New Orleans Saints stem from being unprepared for battle.

Once again the Panthers have gutted their fanbase of any enthusiasm or optimism in the first game of the season. The first half of the opening contest was all it took - an abysmal start when hope was renewed throughout another dramatic summer.

There is nothing good to be gleaned from this game. That is putting it incredibly mildly. The Panthers were overmatched, outplayed, outcoached, and outmaneuvered at every turn. It was never close.

From the first possession, you could see that the Panthers were not in any way prepared for this game. Quite frankly, this fanbase deserves better.

Carolina Panthers were unprepared for battle at the Saints

Losing a game is one thing, but looking lost at every turn and surprised at even the simplest of plays and schemes is something entirely different. The Panthers had no answer for anything the Saints threw at them. Both the line of scrimmage and quarterback Bryce Young looked shell-shocked for the entire contest.

It wasn't even like the Saints had anything special up their sleeves either. They didn't have to as simple runs up the middle got them over five yards. It was as if the team walked into the game high on good vibes and forgot that they had to prepare for and execute a game plan.

Allowing the one deep threat that the Saints have to get behind the defense, then proceeding to give up on the play at the end while looking around for someone else to blame is a terrible way to start the game. To follow that up with an interception on your first offensive play is almost laughable.

Whether the pick was due to poor communication or an overthrow by Young is irrelevant. It stems from a poor level of preparedness for this team. Even the second interception could have been avoided with better planning.

Just looking at the frustration on Adam Thielen's face after that second pick says it all at this point.

The fact that the Saints were able to rattle off an average of five yards a rush and over eight for every pass is yet another fact that shows how inept this Panthers team was. There was never any pressure or push in either side of the trenches. The number of plays where the secondary was lost and left players wide open is too many to count.

Missed tackles, blown coverages, and mispositioned players. Everything went wrong for the Panthers on defense and it was painful to watch.

How did a Panthers defense that was above average last season turn in possibly the worst performance under Ejiro Evero? Perhaps letting the pillars of that defense leave in free agency was a big reason, but there's nothing anybody can do about that now.

This is all without even mentioning the fact that the Saints had four sacks. None of them was from the defensive line, and three of them were from the same cornerback running the same blitz. A blitz in which the corner was completely uncovered or accounted for.

Being surprised by a nickel blitz once is one thing, but three times is unthinkable at even the college level. This speaks not only to preparedness before the game but also to a complete lack of in-game adjustments.

That is how you win in the NFL, you see the team do something and adjust accordingly. Even something this basic seemed out of reach. The Panthers looked like a group of college kids that won a giveaway to play against an NFL team for a day. That is how bad this group was from a preparation standpoint.

There needs to be a change in how this team looks over game film and gets itself ready for their matchups. Especially when you are a team with deficiencies as large as the Panthers have.

The Panthers cannot rely on talent to guide them through games, it just isn't there. This team has to be clever and well-coached, something that was not present in the slightest during Week 1. You cannot just sit and plan your side of the ball and expect the opposition to go along with it. That is not how the NFL works.

Where the Panthers go from here is anyone's guess. With only a week to prepare for one of the best coaches in recent memory, there needs to be a massive improvement if this team even hopes to keep things close.

But there isn't much to say that it will be any different.

One can hope that this game becomes a learning experience and helps to develop the team. But I don't know how much development it can go through before the fanbase leaves it behind.

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