The game vs Tampa Bay was one that I, like the others this season, just presumed was going to be a blowout. The Panthers have surprised me a couple of times this year but in their 2nd to last game of the season they did exactly what I expected them to do and that is to be outclassed in every possible metric. Basically the only thing they could pull together was the chemistry because mini-me quarterback Bryce Young and Adam Thielen, who just seem to work together so well. Knowing what I know about Carolina they will probably release or trade Thielen, because he is doing well. That is just what Carolina does.
I feature the above picture because it was a shining example of poor play calls that the Panthers make on a regular basis. The guy who is almost circled there was involved in a blitz. This is a fraction of a second before the snap. The idea of an effective blitz is to time your run at just the right moment to throw off the offensive line and get an easy route to the QB. In this situation they waited WAY TOO LONG to make some sort of forward momentum. Baker Mayfield (QB for Tampa) read this immediately and now there was a slot in the end zone big enough to land a small airplane in due to the absence of pass defense. The blitz wasn't even close to putting pressure on the QB, let alone a sack. It was just a dumb play.
Carolina actually did OK in the first quarter and it looked like they were going to make a game of it. They responded immediately to the Bucs getting a touchdown and it wasn't until the end of this drive that Bryce Young even had one incomplete pass. It was pretty remarkable stuff. But then Carolina started doing Carolina things and basically nothing they were doing from that point forward was working and they just looked like headless chickens out there. Tampa Bay would score 20 consecutive additional points before the Panthers responded on the scoreboard but at that point it was already far too late. They were "off to the races" as the saying goes and it as about halfway through the 3rd quarter that I stopped watching. It is probably a good thing because the Bucs went on to score 21 more points to Carolina's zero and the final score was 48-14, easily covering the spread of 10 points.
These real-time win probability charts are always funny to me because whoever Carolina is playing against unless they have the names "New York" and "Giants" in their team name, the win probability starts out near 100% win probability for the other team and mostly it stays there the entire time, even when Carolina tied up the score 7-7 early on and briefly looked like, if they were able to keep that form, that they could be the better team on the field. I think the experts all have the same pessimism towards Carolina that I have because even when they are playing well, everyone knows that they are almost certainly going to screw it up. Well, the experts were right and so was little 'ol me.
This victory in gambling takes me to 10 wins and 7 losses on the year so I will finish the season with a winning record, unlike the Carolina Panthers. My system was simple: Bet against Carolina no matter who they are playing or what the spread is.
Carolina's final game of the season is against the Atlanta Falcons and as you can see, there is already a lot of belief that Atlanta will stomp them. Atlanta will be a lot more inclined to try as hard as they can in this last game of the season because they must win in order to make the playoffs. Not only do they need to win but they also need New Orleans to defeat Tampa Bay as well, which is unlikely since the Saints are only marginally less shit than Carolina is. It doesn't really matter: Whoever advances from the NFC South is going to get walloped in the playoffs. I believe it is the weakest conference in the league.
Carolina lost their chance at making the playoffs nearly 2 months ago.
It could be a high scoring game because The Panthers will likely be taking a lot of risks because they truly have nothing to lose, they already lost all they could lose. The spread is currently -7.5 in favor of the Hawks, but I believe that will change to be more like 10 points once we get closer to the weekend.