The Panthers have one more game to go before this 2019 season mercifully comes to an end. They’ll be hosting the Saints today with a chance to salvage some dignity and end a seven-game losing streak.

An upset seems much less likely this year than it was Week 17 of 2018, though. With an opportunity to secure a No. 1 seed, Sean Payton plans to play his starters. Winning is a long shot. There are still several keys Carolina should pay attention to, though. Here are three.

Keep Christian McCaffrey healthy

Everybody wants to see McCaffrey break as many records as he can. However, the team has to balance their long-term interest. It would be tragic for their most valuable play-maker to get injured in an ultimately meaningless game. The Saints have a tough run defense this year, so running No. 22 into a wall repeatedly seems like a very bad idea. The Panthers should look to use McCaffrey mostly as a receiver. Once he gets his 67 yards to reach 1,000 for the year, they should pull him and not think twice about it.

Give Will Grier time to throw

Perhaps the most important element of this game for the Panthers will be evaluating their third-round draft pick, QB Will Grier. He threw three interceptions last week but a couple of them weren’t necessarily his fault. His most tantalizing ability is his deep ball, so giving Grier time to reach those receivers running long routes is critical. The left side of the offensive line has to do better in pass protection and Scott Turner should make use of extra blockers as much as possible.

Special teams fixes

The top reason why Carolina got destroyed in Indianapolis last week was an embarrassing collapse in punt coverage. Perry Fewell apparently had the team working on punting out of bounds in practice this week. Whether that’s the solution or not, this area has to be addressed or it will turn into another blowout situation.

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