The Panthers looked like their early season selves in a bad loss to the Cowboys.
Bryce Young turned the ball over four times as the Carolina Panthers turned into a pumpkin and were blown out at home by the Dallas Cowboys, 30-14.
First Quarter
The Cowboys got the ball first and started the opening drive leaning on Rico Dowdle. They moved across midfield, but a penalty and attempts to air it out stalled the drive and forced a punt.
The Panthers matriculated the ball down the field with some decent Chuba Hubbard carries and a couple passes to Jalen Coker. They got inside the red zone, where on a rollout, Bryce Young evaded Micah Parsons in space with a spin move. He tried to lunge forward for a few yards but got hit on the shoulder and lost the ball on his way to the ground.
The defense responded well to the sudden change and forced a three and out, but the offense did the same on the other end. The first quarter ended with the Panthers set to punt.
Second Quarter
It was the CeeDee Lamb show to start the second quarter. He picked up three third downs with chunk gains. The last of those was a touchdown in the corner of the end zone to put the Cowboys up 7-0.
The Panthers next drive was cut short by another Bryce Young turnover. He tried to hit Adam Thielen underneath, but the pass was broken up and fell into the waiting arms of a defender. The Cowboys needed just one first down to move into field goal range for a 10-0 lead.
The Panthers punted back to the Cowboys after another grossly ineffective drive that featured a loss on first down, a penalty, and a useless underneath pass from Young to Thielen, and then an incomplete deep ball that took Xavier Legette out of bounds on third and long.
The Cowboys were gifted 15 yards on the ensuing drive for an incredibly soft personal foul call on Xavier Woods. That moved them into field goal range. Then the Cowboys decided to get into the giving spirit like everyone else involved in the game. Cooper Rush had the ball knocked out of his hand trying to perform a play action fake, and DJ Johnson pounced on it.
On the very next play, Young aired it out to Jalen Coker, who turned on the burners and outran the defense for an 83 yard touchdown.
The Cowboys ran a few awkward plays to try to set a Brandon Aubrey field goal. It ended up a 70 yard attempt that Aubrey hooked badly. The Panthers tried to run it back but ran out of space out near midfield.
Third Quarter
On the first play of the second half, Damien Lewis whiffed against a stunt. The free runner sacked Young, who fumbled again. It was recovered by Dallas. A couple plays later, Cooper Rush found Jalen Tolbert in the back of the endzone with Xavier Woods standing nearby but not covering. That made the score 17-7.
Another ineffective drive featuring a sack and penalty led to another punt after three plays. The Cowboys met little resistance, almost seemingly by design, and marched down the field for another touchdown along the back of the endzone.
The ensuing Panthers drive started with another sack, this time from Micah Parsons running right around Ikem Ekwonu. Young was sacked again on third down, which forced out the boo birds and the punt team. The quarter ended with the Cowboys running over the Panthers on their way into the red zone.
Fourth Quarter
A couple of Cowboys penalties ruined the momentum of the drive over the quarter break. They were forced to kick a 45 yard field goal, which Aubrey chipped through.
The Panthers found a little bit of their stride with the game pretty much out of reach. Young found Thielen on an in breaker to pick up a 4th and medium. A few plays later, Young got ran down from behind by Parsons to set up 4th and 14. Facing a three score deficit, the Panthers were forced to go for it. 14 yards would have been an insurmountable hole for this offense to climb out of, but the Cowboys committed two penalties on the play, a roughing the passer and a pass interference for holding onto Coker. The pass interference set the Panthers up on the five yard line. A pass interference on the next play moved the Panthers to the one yard line, but Cade Mays didn’t snap the ball when the rest of the offense started moving and backed the Panthers right back up. Finally, after the comedy of penalties, Young scrambled for a touchdown.
The ensuing Cowboys drive started in Panthers territory after a short kickoff and a personal foul on Sam Franklin. The Cowboys called several run plays in a row to pretty good success. By the time the Panthers stopped them, they were in chip shot field goal range.
Bryce Young got the ball back down 16 points with six minutes to play. Young got sacked on second down by another pass rusher running around Ekwonu. He had Hubbard on the ensuing third down, but the pass was awkwardly over his shoulder and he couldn’t reel it in. The Cowboys aided the drive with some penalties, but they weren’t called for a more egregious personal foul than the one called on the Panthers earlier. On the next play, Young badly underthrew Adam Thielen by about 10 yards and was picked off for his fourth turnover of the game. Tw Cowboys went four minute offense and ran the clock out.
Overview
It looked like early season Panthers, if not last season’s Panthers. The offense was predictable, Bryce Young looked indecisive, and there was absolutely no threat of a downfield passing attack outside of one play against broken coverage. The four turnovers led to 10 Cowboys points, and one, maybe two of those took points off the board.
The defense played very soft against a Cowboys team featuring a bunch of backup offensive linemen and a backup quarterback. You’d think they would have turned the heat up in that situation, but they elected not to. They ended up with just one sack, a stark contrast from the heavy pressure they had generated in recent weeks against significantly better offenses.
It was a weird game. The Panthers looked like their old selves and almost looked like they had a letdown against a bad team even though they hadn’t won anything.
They’ll try to figure it out with their home finale next week against the Cardinals.