I actually quite surprised that they did as well as they did in this one and actually scored a few points and made a game of it. At one point it looked like they might actually win but this was in the first half and I knew that they would manage to screw it up because they always do.
In the end they fell to their 3rd regular season loss and are still winless even with the pre-season.
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This sums up what the entire season is likely to be like for Carolina
only 4% of overall bets were on Carolina to win this one and the Seahawks were nearly -250 favorites and the scary thing about that is the fact the the Seahawks are not even good either. Unfortunately I am starting to feel as though every single team in the NFL is better than Carolina this year and we are in for week after week of disappointment. The most exciting week for Carolina this season may very well end up being their bye week where at least we won't end up disappointed yet again.
In the 2nd quarter we saw something that very well might not be replicated again this season and that is that Carolina was actually AHEAD on points going into the locker room at halftime. Despite this I and anyone else out there that has basically permanent lack of faith in the Panthers knew they would blow it in the 2nd half and yep, that's exactly what they did.
The Seahawks literally and figuratively ran away with it and despite a few shining moments in the 2nd half, the Panthers looked like exactly what they are, a terrible team. To make matters worse they introduced a new aspect of their play that we have been yet to see this season and that was getting penalties left and right. I am not going to claim that this was home cookin' for the Seahawks who had home-field advantage, the Panthers were just playing like they were frustrated, which they almost certainly are, and were getting flags so often. The Panthers gave away 82 yards on 13 penalties and sheesh guys, you gotta get those numbers down if you are ever going to have a chance at beating anyone this year.
If there is one ray of sunshine from this dismal experience it would be that this loss cannot be blamed on QB Andy Dalton, who actually did extremely well and managed to throw zero INT's.
Let's give some credit to the offensive line who managed to only allow him to get sacked 3 times in this game, but that wasn't without some experienced scrambling to get away from the defense. I think if I was the management of Carolina, that I would keep Dalton in the game and at least for now, forget about Bryce Young.
Carolina will host the Minnesota Vikings at home next week and they are also 0-3. Unlike the Panthers though, the Vikings have a pretty tough conference to contend with and that is why at least for now, the Vikings are slightly favored to win this game. I will be watching this game very closely but also with a tremendous amount of pessimism. Carolina just hasn't given me very much to get excited about in the first 6 games of the season and unfortunately I don't think that is all of a sudden going to magically change.