Panthers can’t stop Saints in painful loss

Carolina Panthers can’t stop New Orleans Saints in painful 27-24 loss.

An NFL game wasn’t the only event taking place down in New Orleans this weekend. The Mercedes-Benz Superdome also played host to a warm reunion on Sunday.

When one made his leap up in the football world this offseason, all the success and all the good times were left behind. The wins, the togetherness, the fun—even in what was initially thought to be an odd relationship—were now just simply memories.

But, after nearly a year apart, they finally met again here in Week 7. That’s right, Matt Rhule and his smock!

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule and his (in)famous smock finally reunited on the sideline for the first time since his days at Baylor University. Oh, and Teddy Bridgewater returned to the workplace of his previous employer as well.

Sadly for the Carolina Panthers, that smock still wasn’t enough to stop the slop that would ensue. And neither was Bridgewater, as the team dropped to 3-4 with a painful loss to the division rival Saints.

Their 27-24 defeat is by no means to be placed at Teddy’s feet. In fact, he was just as good as his former teammate and current adversary, Drew Brees, in a strong bounce-back outing from last week.

Bridgewater appeared right at home, completing 23 of his 28 passes for 254 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. As he’s often been, especially as he was in New Orleans, he was considerably efficient in orchestrating a methodical offense.

He kept Robby Anderson’s breakout campaign going (six receptions, 74 yards), put Curtis Samuel in multiple spots to come up clutch (three successful third-down conversions) and dug into his bag of tricks for a big-time deep ball to DJ Moore. Bridgewater connected with Moore on a beautiful 74-yard touchdown at the 10:56 mark of the second quarter to stop the bleeding of what was a 14-3 Saints lead.

That aforementioned slop, instead, came courtesy of the Carolina defense.

Save for a strip-sack by, you guessed it, pass rush specialist and human missile Brian Burns, the Panthers could not stop the New Orleans offense.

The Saints were powered by a total of 415 yards while converting on a ridiculous 12 of their 14 third-down tries. 12-of-14. Punter Thomas Morstead never even had to put his helmet on. The only achievement for the Panthers defense was that they were somehow able to hold the Saints to only 27 points.

Despite the unit having actually impressed to this point, as there were very little to no expectations considering their youth and inexperience, this particular performance stung a bit.

The Saints, even with top wideouts in Michael Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders inactive, still had their way.

The contest ended in fitting fashion, as a valiant 65-yard field goal attempt by Joey Slye to tie the game at 27 fell just short with two minutes remaining. As they did all afternoon, they fell just short—largely void of big plays and big stops.

Overall, though, we can hit Rhule and his Panthers with another sincere “good job, good effort.”

Who would have thought the Panthers would have as many as three wins through seven games? Would would have thought these Panthers would be competitive in each of these seven games? Probably no one.

So as Carolina prepares to turn around back home for a short rest and a Thursday night date with the Atlanta Falcons ahead, they must start to clean it up a bit . . . or else Rhule and his smock may have to permanently reconcile if things continue to get any messier.

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