NEW ORLEANS — The Carolina Panthers’ players and coaches refused to talk about last season through the offseason and training camp, then went out in Week 1 and played just like it was 2023 all over again — only worse.
The Panthers were outclassed in every phase of an embarrassing 47-10 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday that will start anew questions about whether they have the right quarterback and the right coach to set the franchise on a winning course.
That’s admittedly a rush to judgment on Dave Canales after just one game. That’s how badly the Panthers were kicked around inside the Caesars Superdome, where quarterback Bryce Young was intercepted on the first offensive snap of the season, the defense yielded scores on the Saints’ first nine possessions and the special teams gave up a blocked punt and long punt return.
Coming off last year’s NFL-worst 2-15 finish, it was the kind of opener where dreams go to die. The 37-point deficit was the fourth worst in Panthers history, while the Saints — who aren’t exactly Super Bowl contenders — racked up their highest-ever Week 1 point total.
“Of course, you want to come out and start out on a high note. It happened today and that’s tough,” Young said. “We’re gonna wear that today. We’re gonna learn from it when we turn the film on tomorrow. But that doesn’t define us. Obviously, a long year. … But we’ve gotta turn the page. It’s a tough league.”
Canales and general manager Dan Morgan — who replaced Frank Reich and Scott Fitterer, respectively — tried to warn everyone this could be a challenging year. They repeatedly declined to set public expectations and parsed words for the rebuild, with Morgan calling it more of a “retooling.”
But fans hoped the Panthers would at least be competitive in Young’s second season. But they weren’t even close to that Sunday when the game was effectively over within the first five minutes.
That’s how long it took for safety Jordan Fuller to blow a coverage on Rashid Shaheed’s 59-yard touchdown pass from Derek Carr, and for Young to airmail Diontae Johnson and get picked by Will Harris on Canales’ first play call as a head coach.
FIRST PLAY ON DEFENSE & IT’S A WILL HARRIS INTERCEPTION
📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/CWnDwA3bu3
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) September 8, 2024
Young’s throw was so off-target that it was tough to tell whether it was intended for Johnson or Adam Thielen. Canales said Young was trying to go across the middle to Johnson, who had a step on cornerback Paulson Adebo, at least in Canales’ view.
It was a bit of a strange call for Canales after the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator vowed to establish the run from the day he was hired in January.
“It’s a play we have a lot of confidence in,” Thielen said. “I think they gave us a different look than we were expecting with how we set it up. And they made a play.”
The Panthers’ defense held the Saints to a field goal after Young’s pick. Still, getting down 10-0 early in one of the NFL’s loudest venues seemed like a recipe for disaster. And by the latter part of the second quarter, the Saints’ lead had swelled to 30-0 amidst a comedy of errors by the Panthers, to include right tackle Taylor Moton “tackling” Young on a scramble.
The Panthers at least managed to score. Eddy Pineiro’s 43-yard field goal as the half expired snapped a nine-quarter scoreless streak that dated to DJ Chark’s touchdown against Green Bay on Christmas Eve.
Young later scored on a 3-yard run — the first rushing touchdown of his career — after replay officials ruled he’d broken the plane of the goal line before fumbling.
But there was little else good to say about Young’s performance. Last year’s No. 1 pick was 13-of-30 for 161 yards, tossed two interceptions and finished with the worst passer rating (32.8) and second-worst completion percentage (43.3) of his career.
After he was sacked four times — three times on blitzes by nickel corner Alontae Taylor — Young conceded he needed to be better identifying the blitz and adjusting to it. Between offensive series, the 23-year-old sat on the visitors bench, staring straight ahead and looking almost shell-shocked.
GO DEEPER
NFL Week 1 takeaways: Cowboys’ talent overwhelms, Harbaugh’s formula works, shaky debut for Williams
“It’s a league where everybody wants to be good. I don’t know what he was feeling, I won’t speak for him,” right guard Robert Hunt said. “I don’t know about shell-shocked, but he was going through what he was going through. We were going through what we were going through. I just know we had his back. We told him, ‘We’ve got your back. And whatever you need from us, we’ll do.’ ”
Hunt, who signed a five-year, $100 million in March to help fortify the interior, was among the Panthers’ starters who played only one series in three preseason games. After getting so soundly beaten Sunday, Canales said he might rethink that approach next summer.
But players brushed off questions about their lack of work in the exhibitions.
“That’s game one of 17. The preseason’s the preseason. I don’t think it would’ve made a difference,” safety Xavier Woods said. “When we look back on this Week 10, 11, once we get to rolling, get to winning, when we look back on it we’re not gonna say we should have played in the preseason to win Game 1.”
Game 1 of Dave Canales’ head coaching career with the Panthers was not a memorable one. (Stephen Lew / USA Today)
After watching Sunday’s ineptitude, it’s difficult to envision the Panthers getting things rolling anytime soon, if at all. But no matter how lopsided the score Sunday, the eternally optimistic Canales told his team to focus on how to improve moving forward.
“In weeks from now, it’s not going to matter what the score was. We lost,” he said. “Let’s go to the truth of it and move on, so it doesn’t have that carryover effect.”
Canales was part of the widespread organizational change in the offseason, when the Panthers turned over their front office, offensive coaching staff and about half of their roster. Canales, who was with Morgan in Seattle, said Sunday it would be a “long journey to become us.”
Presumably, David Tepper is on board for that journey, which got off to the rockiest of starts in the Superdome.
“Yes, did we start out in a way that looks like last year? But this is a new team. This is a new roster. This is a new coaching staff. This is a new organization. And we’re not gonna go back to last year,” Thielen said.
“I think there’s gonna be a sense of urgency when we get back in that building to say, how can we do that? How does that look? I think you just don’t know who you are until you start playing real games.”
But the Panthers found out Sunday, and it did not offer a lot of hope. Not in the slightest.
(Top photo of Bryce Young: Stephen Lew / USA Today)
