Panthers 7, Lions 10. Panthers ball 3rd-and-10 at CAR 6The Situation

Plays to Love http://www.carolinapanthersteamonline.com/michael-palardy-jersey , Plays to Hate (aka “P2L, P2H”) looks at the most significant plays in swinging momentum and impacting the eventual outcome of the game. There is always plenty to hate about NFL officiating, so we will only focus on the plays on the field, not the refs.Three plays to love3rd Quarter 12:09 – The Panthers offense had been awful outside of an opening drive touchdown. After taking possession at their own six yard line, Carolina now faced 3rd-and-10 from the shadow of their own end zone. A punt here would put the defense in a tough situation.The Play: D.J. Moore ran a deep out route, went over the defender to make the catch, then sprinted 82-yards down to the Detroit 12 yard line. Unfortunately, Moore was surprisingly caught from behind by Darius Slay on one of the longer plays you’ll see that didn’t result in a touchdown. To make matters worse, the offense couldn’t score and then Graham Gano shanked a 34-yard field goal, completely wasting Moore’s brilliant play.4th Quarter 13:13 – Panthers 7, Lions 13. Panthers ball 3rd-and-9 at CAR 9The Situation: Carolina’s offense was pinned inside the 10 once again. Facing 3rd-and-9 from their own nine yard line, the anemic Panthers offense needed a big play.The Play: Devin Funchess ran a deep slant and picked up 16 yards. The third down conversion jumpstarted an up-tempo passing attack that resulted in a beautiful 12-yard Curtis Samuel touchdown. While Funchess really struggled in this game, his conversion on 3rd-and-9 and the subsequent touchdown was a true momentum shifter.4th Quarter 1:18 – Panthers 13, Lions 20. Panthers ball 1st-and-Goal at DET 8The Situation: Aided by a huge 34-yard pickup by Christian McCaffrey, the Panthers navigated down to the Detroit eight yard line trailing with just over a minute remaining. Trailing by seven points, Carolina needed a touchdown. The Play: D.J. Moore ran a perfect out route, juking his defender and getting enough separation for Cam to loft him a perfect pass. Moore executed a toe-tap on the sideline as he hauled in the clutch touchdown, cutting the Panthers deficit to 20-19, but the go-ahead two-point conversion failed. Three plays to hate3rd Quarter 9:16 – Panthers 7 Authentic Christian McCaffrey Jersey , Lions 10. Panthers ball, 34-yard field goal attemptThe Situation: D.J. Moore’s electric 82-yard reception set up the Panthers for an easy field goal to tie the game at 10. The Play(s): Graham Gano inexplicably doinked the gimme field goal off the upright. It was his first miss inside of 50 yards in his last 38 attempts. Later in the game, Gano would shank an extra point to keep the score tied at 13-13 instead of giving the Panthers a one point lead. These missed kicks doomed the Panthers in this defeat and I’m tagging Gano with two plays to hate this week. 4th Quarter 6:37 – Panthers 13, Lions 13. Lions ball 3rd-and-15 at DET 45The Situation: A Julius Peppers sacks forced the Lions into a difficult 3rd-and-15 from near midfield. A stop here would give the Panthers the ball back with around six minutes left in a tied game.The Play: James Bradberry just flat out got beat by Kenny Golladay on a 36-yard reception. Bradberry was even flagged for defensive holding on the play, which the Lions obviously declined. The play was a killer because the Panthers should’ve been able to force a punt in this situation, but the Lions drive was extended and yielded Detroit’s go-ahead touchdown three plays later. 4th Quarter 1:14 – Panthers 19, Lions 20. Panthers ball, two-point conversion attemptThe Situation: Graham Gano’s missed extra point earlier in the game left the Panthers trailing 20-19 instead of tied 20-20 after D.J. Moore’s clutch touchdown. The Play: Ron Rivera made the right call by going for a two-point conversion with the hopes of a 21-20 lead late in the fourth quarter instead of kicking an extra point for a tie. Cam Newton dropped to pass and got good protection. Jarius Wright shook free and was open coming across the middle. Cam just rushed the pass and overthrew Wright. Game over.Closing it out and summing it upLook, I’m not going to kill Cam for overthrowing the two-point conversion. Yes, he should have made that throw, but without Cam’s 25-of-37 for 357 yards and three touchdowns, the game would have been out of reach long before the overthrow. Plus, even if Cam converts and the Panthers go up 21-20, the Lions still would’ve had over a minute left and all three timeouts to set up a game-winning field goal. What were the odds the Lions still would’ve won 23-21 against this ho-hum Panthers defense? Forty percent? Fifty percent? Seventy five? The point is even if Carolina executes the two-point conversion, the defense still could’ve found a way to lose this game on the Lions final possession. Let’s take a moment to celebrate D.J. Moore (7-157-1) and Curtis Samuel (5-55-1). It’s wonderful to have two young, explosive, and improving receivers in the fold. Devin Funchess had several egregious drops in this one, but he’s still having a solid season overall and remains on pace for 65 receptions and 825 yards. On defense, tackling was horrible. If Kerryon Johnson (15 rushes for 87 yards) hadn’t been injured in the third quarter, he singlehandedly could’ve put this game out of reach much sooner for the Lions. Even Luke Kuechly’s missing tackles these days. At 6-4 and coming off two bad losses http://www.carolinapanthersteamonline.com/mario-addison-jersey , this Panthers season is starting to feel like fool’s gold, especially with two games against the New Orleans Saints still looming. This team is good enough to be competitive in most games but lacks the consistency and killer instinct to finish off inferior teams like the Lions. Let’s hope they fare better this week against the Seattle Seahawks. Plays to love season leaders5 - D.J. Moore3 - Cam Newton, Christian McCaffrey, James Bradberry2 - Devin Funchess, Efe Obada, Kyle Love, Torrey Smith, 1 - Ben Jacobs, Colin Jones, David Mayo, Donte Jackson, Eric Reid, Graham Gano, Greg Olsen, Jarius Wright, Julius Peppers, Kawann Short, Mario Addison, Norv Turner, Ron Rivera Authentic Taylor Moton Jersey , Taylor Heinicke, Wes HortonPlays to hate season leaders4 -Cam Newton, Eric Reid, Mike Adams2 - Christian McCaffrey, D.J. Moore, Dontari Poe, Eric Washington, Graham Gano, James Bradberry1 - Amini Silatolu, C.J. Anderson, Captain Munnerlyn, Colin Jones, Devin Funchess, Donte Jackson, Ian Thomas, Luke Kuechly, Norv Turner, Ron Rivera, Thomas Davis, Trai TurnerTuesday Turtle Spotlight: Or how the Panthers almost blew Week 1 Welcome to the newest weekly feature here at Cat Scratch Reader. Ron Rivera has a long and celebrated history of being aggressively conservative in games http://www.carolinapanthersteamonline.com/wes-horton-jersey , despite his old “Riverboat” gambler nickname. He plays not to lose. He turtles up. If that seems absolutely daft to you — if you think NFL teams should play to win, for example — then this is the place for you.Against the Cowboys, the Panthers made the choice to “burn clock” in the traditional way and minimize the risk of Cam Newton turning the ball over by throwing an interception. Newton has, over his career, thrown an interception on 2.7% of his passing attempts. He did not throw one at all on Sunday. Instead of taking that extraordinary risk, the Panthers elected to keep the ball safely on the ground and ultimately handed the Cowboys an opportunity to tie the game in the final minutes.Running the ball wasn’t necessarily the problem. The problem was that the coaching staff made an obvious running situation even more obvious and easier to defend by putting heavy personnel on the field. The Panthers first 9 drives averaged 6.2 plays and used an average of 3 minutes and 12 seconds of game clock, and only two of those drives were 3 and outs. Had the Panthers continued to run their normal offense, it’s likely they would have picked up at least 1 first down and never let the Dallas offense back onto the field.Instead, they went jumbo. They put 2 backs and 2 tight ends on the field and split a single receiver out wide. With only 1 receiver on the field, the Cowboys were able to deploy their base 4-3 defense and had 9 defenders in the box at the time of the snap.Some math for you: the Panthers had 10 players “in the box” and 1 split out wide. One of the players in the box was quarterback Cam Newton, who would eventually hand the ball to CJ Anderson, another player in the box. That left 8 Panthers to block 9 Cowboys at the line of scrimmage. You won’t win many plays like that. The Cowboys unsurprisingly blew up the play in the backfield.One play. Negative 1 yard. Three seconds off the clock. Timeout.Second down was more of the same. One Panthers receiver out wide and nine Cowboys within 5 yards of the ball at the snap. No gain. Three more seconds off the clock. Timeout.The Panthers tried to pass on third down out of desperation, and the Cowboys were able to force Newton to scramble for a single yard, bringing up 4th down and forcing the Panthers to punt just 13 seconds after they took possession of the ball. By trying to play it safe and milk clock, the Panthers gave the ball back to the Cowboys with a timeout and nearly two minutes to mount a comeback.It shouldn’t have to be said, but here we are: Putting your money on Mario Addison getting a strip-sack over Cam Newton throwing for a first down is a bad bet.