The Carolina Panthers have now been blown out twice this season. It wasn’t terribly hard to see the disaster in Santa Clara coming. Sunday’s loss to the Falcons was something different, though. Few if any expected them to upset the 49ers and their NFC-best defense. This week they were playing at home in a must-win game where they were favored by 5.5 points.
The Falcons laid waste to those odds and any realistic hope of Carolina making the playoffs this year – dominating them in all three phases en route to a 29-3 win. As expected, the Panthers took a tumble in our power rankings. Going into Week 12, Doug Farrar at Touchdown Wire has them at No. 16, down six spots from last week. He has questions about Kyle Allen.
“Quarterback Kyle Allen ran into a buzzsaw unseen since his no-touchdown, three-pick, seven-sack performance against San Francisco on Oct. 27, and given the quality of the defense he was facing this time around, this no-touchdown, four-pick, five-sack outing was even worse. . . It’s starting to look as if Allen is more of a work in progress than originally imagined, and the Panthers don’t have enough parts around him to make than transition any easier.”
Here at Panthers Wire we were never on board with the idea that Allen was close to being a long-term QB1 in any case. Allen is a fine backup and the Panthers should keep him in that role as long as they can control him at a low price, no matter who the starter is. However, asking him to start 14 games for a team that was designed to win now around a former MVP is asking too much.
We know what Allen is. It’s time to find out what general manager Marty Hurney got in third-round pick Will Grier. Allen is far from the only problem for Carolina, though.
While they finally were able to contain the run, Atlanta exposed the Panthers’ pass defense on Sunday in a way nobody else has. Some strange coaching decisions didn’t help (like Luke Kuechly covering Julio Jones 50 yards down the field and Brian Burns playing 16 snaps), but it was surprising to see how easily Matt Ryan and the Falcons moved the ball through the air.
On Monday, coach Ron Rivera told reporters he doesn’t think personnel changes are needed on either offense or defense. If he really believes that, then this team is already toast.
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