Panthers vs. Saints: Carolina Grades, Notes and Quotes

It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty, but ugly wins count the same in the standings.  The Carolina Panthers played their sloppiest first half of the season and made miscue after miscue, but they rallied and showed resiliency to beat the New Orleans Saints, 41-38.

The Panthers tied their season high for turnovers in the first half but survived their toughest battle since the Green Bay game in Week 9.  They hadn’t really been seriously tested since then, but they rose to the challenge behind Cam Newton’s five touchdowns—his second such game in the last three weeks.

It didn’t look like things were set up for a big game early on for the Panthers.  Turnovers on three of their first five drives led to 14 New Orleans points, and drops and missed tackles plagued the team all game long.  Even when they did succeed, scoring a touchdown at the end of the first half, they managed to make a blunder: New Orleans returned a blocked extra point for the first ever defensive two-point conversion in NFL history.

Other things that hadn’t happened in NFL history?  A 16-game regular-season win streak, at least in the NFC post-merger.  The Panthers now have the longest sustained run of success in the NFC in the Super Bowl era and are tied with the 1941-42 Bears, the 1947-48 Browns, the 1971-73 Dolphins, the 1983-84 Dolphins and the 2004-05 Steelers for the fifth-longest win streak in professional football history. They are one of the few teams ever that can claim a full season’s worth of wins in a full season’s worth of games.

The Panthers wouldn’t have joined that group without coming out on top during a wild second half that saw both teams have double-digit leads and four lead changes in the fourth quarter alone.  When they needed to the most, the defense got a final stop to end the game, and the Panthers ended up victorious, NFC South champions for the third consecutive year, and still undefeated.

They may not have played like a team that could go 12-0 in this game, but that’s exactly where they are, joining the nine other teams to reach that mark in professional football history.  Five of those previous teams won championships (including the 1948 Browns in the AAFC), two more reached the Super Bowl and the other two won a Super Bowl within a year of their 12-0 start.  The Panthers keep winning and continue to find themselves in rarefied air.

Grades

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Jonathan Stewart passed a career high in carries.

Quarterback: A

What other grade could you give him?  Cam Newton threw five touchdown passes and made clutch play after clutch play late in the fourth quarter to keep the Panthers undefeated.  At the beginning of the season, the Panthers had only thrown five touchdowns in a game one time.  Newton has now done that twice in three weeks.

Running Backs: B

Both Jonathan Stewart and Mike Tolbert found the end zone—Tolbert on a 12-yard touchdown pass and Stewart on an option flip.  Stewart had 113 all-purpose yards on the day and has now exceeded his career high in carries for a season.  He only averaged 3.9 yards per carry this week, but that was enough.

Wide Receivers: C

The receivers were average in the same way that sticking one hand in a fire and the other hand in a freezer means, on average, you’re quite comfortable.  Ted Ginn had five receptions for 80 yards and two touchdowns but also dropped at least two more potential touchdowns—a very hot-and-cold day from him.  All other wideouts covered for six receptions for 46 yards, though both Jerricho Cotchery and Devin Funchess had a touchdown reception.

Tight Ends: A

Greg Olsen had nine receptions for 129 yards, and Ed Dickson had three more receptions for 27 more yards.  Olsen’s performance put him past Wesley Walls for most receptions by a tight end in franchise history; he had broken the yardage record earlier this season.  The 129 yards were the third most he’s ever had in a single game; the other two also came this season.  Olsen did fumble to tarnish his day.

Offensive Line: B

There were some glitches—Mike Remmers had a holding call negate a touchdown, and they did allow a sack—but the offensive line mostly held their own against the Saints.  They let Cam Jordan get into the backfield once for a sack but also allowed the running game as a whole to get 5.1 yards per carry.

Defensive Line: C-

Kawann Short had a sack and Kyle Love had a tackle for a loss, but that was about it for the defensive line in this game.  They didn’t pressure Drew Brees frequently enough and allowed an average of 5.0 yards per carry on the ground.  They held the Saints to only 70 yards rushing overall, but that was more a factor of the aerial nature of the game rather than their play in the run game.

Linebackers: B

Thomas Davis led the team in tackles, recorded a sack on Brees and generally was all over the place on the field.  Luke Kuechly had six tackles of his own, but neither made the sort of game-changing plays we saw last week against Dallas, for example.

Defensive Backs: C+

Brees threw for 282 yards, and both Brandin Cooks and Brandon Coleman consistently found their way open in the secondary, combining for 10 receptions for 177 yards.  They clearly missed Charles Tillman, as replacement nickel back Colin Jones struggled.  Kurt Coleman did have an interception, his sixth of the season, but this was arguably the secondary’s worst day since the Week 3 matchup against the Saints.

Special Teams: C

Graham Gano had an extra point blocked and returned for a score by the Saints at the end of the first half, which will be the headline here.  They also didn’t get any yardage on punt returns, despite Thomas Morstead punting five times.

Coaching: A

Ron Rivera won both of his challenges on the day, wiping out an 11-yard reception for New Orleans and correctly giving Ted Ginn a catch.  He also made great calls to go for it, first on a 4th-and-1 late in the first quarter down 14 points, and then on a more obvious 4th-and-4 with just over two minutes left in the game.

Panthers Dig Their Own Hole

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Stephone Anthony scored on a fumble recovery.

Coming into this matchup, the Panthers had the best turnover differential in the NFL, at plus-16.  Their previous season high for turnovers was three, against both Philadelphia and Indianapolis.

They matched that total in the first half against New Orleans.

Newton threw his first interception in 89 pass attempts in the first quarter, with Delvin Breaux picking off a pass intended for Ginn in a very tight window.   The Saints failed to capitalize, however, when Kai Forbath missed the ensuing field goal.

Stewart fumbled on a rather controversial call—only one player on the field seemed to realize the play was still live, and that was Stephone Anthony, who raced the ball into the end zone.  There wasn’t enough visual evidence to overturn the call on the field, either.

The third turnover came on Olsen’s first lost fumble in 299 receptions, as the normally sure-handed tight end put the ball on the ground when the Panthers were aiming to score again.

The result of the turnovers—as well as a blocked extra-point attempt, returned for the first defensive two-point conversion in NFL history—was a 16-13 New Orleans lead at halftime.  It was only the third time this season that the Panthers were trailing at halftime, and the first time since the Seattle game in Week 5.

Two of those three games were against the Saints, oddly enough. The score was tied at the half back in Week 3.

They didn’t turn the ball over in the second half, but blown coverages, penalties and dropped passes continued—it was a sloppy performance where the Panthers did just enough to come out on top.

After the Dallas game, defensive tackle Dwan Edwards said that, “It’s going to take us not playing our best for someone to beat us,” per Joe Person of the Charlotte Observer.  It feels like the Panthers opted to test that theory against the Saints, turning in their worst first half of the season.

Cam Newton Makes an Argument for MVP

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Cam Newton tossed five touchdown passes.

Battered and bruised—he had to leave the field briefly to get cleared by an independent neurologist and had trainers checking out his ankle at multiple points during the game—Newton found a way to overcome drops by his teammates and turnovers to propel the Panthers to their 16th consecutive regular-season win.

Newton was 28-for-41 for 331 yards, five touchdowns and one interception, and he rushed for another 49 yards despite suffering some vicious shots from a surprisingly feisty Saints defense.  He could have had more, too—during one sequence late in the third quarter, Ginn, Funchess and Philly Brown all couldn’t quite get the handle on passes, at least two of which would have likely ended up in the end zone.

With the perfect season on the line—and apparently unaware that the division had already been clinched, per Max Henson of Panthers.com—Newton was at his best.  Newton completed nine passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone, including a desperately needed fourth-down conversion to Olsen at the two-minute warning.  That was the difference between the win and a close loss.

Newton’s raw statistics aren’t quite up to the levels of a Tom Brady or Carson Palmer, and he still has moments where he misses what should be easy throws, like when he led Olsen out of bounds early in the game.  However, when you take into account the quality of his teammates, his play in the clutch and the still-undefeated nature of the Panthers, Newton has to be the leader at the moment when talking about the most valuable player in the NFL.

There’s still a month left in the season, and Newton’s not clear enough from some of his opponents to start chiseling his name into the trophy, but when you look at his performances in games like this week, or Week 5 in Seattle, you can see why the Panthers wouldn’t swap him for any other quarterback in the NFL.

Panthers Clinch NFC South

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The Panthers have become the first team to clinch a playoff berth this season.

Even before kickoff, the Panthers knew that they had accomplished something that had never been done in the NFC South before.

Down in Tampa, Jameis Winston was performing some late-game magic against the floundering, flailing and falling Falcons.  Winston found Mike Evans in the end zone with 1:39 remaining to give Tampa Bay a 23-19 win over Atlanta.  The Falcons have now lost five straight games, and six of their last seven.

That loss knocked the Falcons down to 6-6 on the year.  The Panthers had already won 11 games entering the week, so they have clinched the NFC South for the third consecutive year.

Before last season, no team had ever won the NFC South in as many as back-to-back years.  Now the Panthers have won the division three years running and are building a mini-dynasty in the division.

They have also clinched a slot ahead of the eventual NFC East champion.  Washington, sitting on top of the division coming in, was at 5-6, again well below the Panthers.  That means the Panthers will be one of the top three seeds regardless.

That doesn’t mean Carolina has nothing else to play for. Arizona won to get to 10-2 and is breathing right down Carolina’s neck, and Green Bay or Minnesota could theoretically still catch up as well.  Carolina is still in a great position to lock up home-field advantage, but it can’t rest on its laurels quite yet.

Still, it’s a feat worth celebrating.  It extends the longest playoff streak in franchise history, ensures at least one home game in Carolina this postseason and keeps them on track for their second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history.

Ron Rivera: Missed Some Today

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Ron Rivera will have a few teaching points this week.

One of the challenges a coach of an undefeated team has is finding things to point out that the team did poorly, to continue to prompt his players to work hard and improve.  That won’t be too difficult for Rivera after this week’s game.

“We missed some today. We threw a couple long, we threw a couple over the tops of heads and we did drop some. It’s going to happen. The thing you have to do is go in and make plays and that’s what happened,” Rivera said after the game, per the Charlotte Observer.

The Panthers did make plays at the end of the game, but there were more points for the taking if the execution had just been a bit sharper.  There were times when Carolina could have blown things wide open, but things just didn’t seem to click.

Rivera and his Panthers have made a habit out of winning close games in recent years. They are 14-2-1 in games decided by a touchdown or less since September 16th, 2013.  At some point, that’s not going to be sustainable, but for now, Rivera and the Panthers keep skating by.

Cam Newton: “Deserved” That Big Hit

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Cam Newton took some shots in this one.

One of the few things Newton did wrong all game was slow up on what looked like a sure rushing touchdown.  Instead, Newton was clobbered by Michael Mauti, leading to his concussion scare.

Newton was asked about easing up in his postgame press conference.  “There’s probably a lot of people that wanted to see it,” Newton said (per Joe Person).  “My dad will say I deserve it,” he added, noting that he shouldn’t slow up before scoring.

"It's a physical sport. It's not ballet,” Newton continued.  “It's a collision sport. I know that and I understand that. But I'm fine."

Newton mentioned that it was his neck, not his head, that was bothering him on the final drive, re-affirming multiple times that he did not have a concussion and was cleared by the neurologist when he ran into the locker room in the third quarter.  With Newton taking such a prominent role in the run game, the odds of him getting hurt are higher than those of a traditional pocket passer, and that’s one thing that has to have Panthers fans worried down the stretch.

Josh Norman Tips His Hat to Drew Brees

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Josh Norman did not have one of his better days, overall.

Early in the fourth quarter, Josh Norman saw an underneath route and tried to jump it.  Instead, Brees found Brandon Coleman, Norman’s assigned man, wide open for a touchdown down the seam.

“That’s why Drew Brees is Drew Brees. He’ll be in the Hall of Fame,” Norman said, per the Charlotte Observer. “He saw something, called a timeout and ran the same play. He saw us in the same coverage. He went with his gut and he made a big play. I’ve got to tip my hat to him.

“I don’t even know how he saw it. I thought we covered it up very well. He did it and he saw us in the coverage that looked good to him – I thought it looked good to us,” Norman said.

Opposing quarterbacks have mostly stopped throwing at Norman, with Pro Football Focus recording just 65 targets this season, most of them very short.  However, he’s not invincible, and Drew Brees has made a lot of cornerbacks look foolish over the course of his career.

“Drew did a great job of pumping with his eyes, and one thing led to another.” 

Norman’s just happy that there was a full quarter to play after Brees fooled the defense, and many lead changes left to go.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers.  Follow him @BryKno on twitter.