Panthers vs. Bears game review: Another game to flush

The Andy Dalton honeymoon period ended in a hurry as the Panthers were walloped by the Bears.

The scrappy Carolina Panthers team from the previous two weeks was nowhere to be seen on Sunday against the Chicago Bears. While it may have looked like the Panthers were ready for war at Soldier Field after Chuba Hubbard scored on a 38 yard scamper just 5 minutes into the contest, almost every moment thereafter can best be described as a bitter disappointment.

Going into detail on everything that went wrong for the Panthers on Sunday might take me the rest of the week to fully capture. Frankly, it was a bleak afternoon of football that the Panthers will, just like the first two games this season, have to flush and move on from.

Since there wasn’t just a couple of things that spelled defeat for the Panthers to really hone in on, we’ll take a broader lens to this weeks game review. Let’s jump into some of my observations and musings from the latest performance.

Blood and Guts

Those familiar with the lore of the Panthers franchise, will remember the infamous “blood and guts” game when the Panthers faced their former receiver Steve Smith, Sr after he joined the Baltimore Ravens. Smith put up 7 catches for 139 yards and 2 touchdowns. In similar fashion, Bears wide receiver D.J. Moore, who the Panthers included in the now infamously poor trade to the Bears for the rights to acquire Bryce Young, showed why the Panthers made a mistake in sending him off by dropping 5 catches for 105 and another 2 touchdowns. Salt, meet wound.

More blood and guts…

While the previous observation was a callback to some Panthers history, the title of this observation is a touch more literal. That is, the amount of injuries the Panthers sustained felt like an actual bloodbath. The Panthers, who entered the game already down their second best wide receiver (Adam Thielen), second string tight end (Ian Thomas), all pro caliber defensive tackle (Derrick Brown), top two inside linebackers (Shaq Thompson and Josey Jewell), starting outside linebacker (DJ Wonnum), second string corner (Dane Jackson), special teams ace (Sam Franklin) and starting free safety (Jordan Fuller) – managed to get significantly worse.

During the rout, the Panthers lost another set of impact players such as starting receiver (Xavier Legette), stalwart offensive tackle (Taylor Moton), starting center (Austin Corbett), first string tight end (Tommy Tremble) and leading edge rusher (Jadeveon Clowney). If you are keeping count, that is roughly 15 impact players that the Panthers expected to play a significant role for the team currently sidelined for an unknown amount of time. It would not be unreasonable to argue that there is more talent on the Panthers injured reserve or injury report than there are available players on the active roster.

Bright spots

In a moment where there are a lot of heavy topics surrounding the Panthers, I wanted to cast a small spotlight on a few players that had good moments in week 5. Starting with rookie linebacker Trevin Wallace. Was he perfect? No, far from it. Did he show that he belonged on an NFL field and might actually perform to, or even above, his selection in the 3rd round of the draft? Actually, yes. There will be a lot of growth needed for him to become a mainstay for the Panthers, but he filled in admirably while making 15 tackles with a few big-time plays mixed in.

While there are some who expected very little from the undrafted rookie wide receiver Jalen Coker, he ended the game as the Panthers leading receiver in yards, receptions and even PFF grade after posting a team high offensive grade of 83.3. His catch and run to bring the Panthers into field goal range to end the second half might have been the second best play of the Panthers entire afternoon.

Last and certainly not least, Chuba Hubbard probably deserves the title for best player on the Panthers right now. There might be a few arguments, but as far as consistency throughout this entire season, Chuba is the only Panther I feel comfortable saying has been consistently good for all 4 quarters in all 5 games. The last two weeks of Andy Dalton red-rifling the ball all over the place was fun, but it is time to make the offense run through Hubbard going forward.

That’s all I have for you this week Panthers fans, fingers crossed that a few guys come off the injury report before Sunday as they take on the Atlanta Falcons. Until next time, keep pounding.