It was right there for the taking, even with the defense getting shredded on the ground, two silly turnovers, numerous missed tackles, gut-wrenching penalties and future Hall of Fame Aaron Rodgers playing at home in a snowy Green Bay.
Even with all that, a few other issues not mentioned, the Carolina Panthers were on the doorstep of pulling off a stunner against the Packers.
But a Christian McCaffrey run on the last play of the game literally came just a couple of inches short of giving Carolina a chance to send the game into overtime. Instead, the Packers won 24-16 in a stress-filled game for both teams.
“It was close, but not good enough. I mean, that’s the truth of the matter,” Panthers head coach Ron Rivera said. “It was a matter of inches. We had chances to make plays when we didn’t. We missed some tackles. We missed some blocks. You can’t if you expect to win football games, especially against really good football teams.”
Three things became very clear during Sunday’s game: Carolina’s run defense is extremely bad; the moment wasn’t too big for Panthers quarterback Kyle Allen; Week 2’s loss at home to Tampa could be the loss that ultimately derails Carolina’s playoff hopes.
The Panthers (5-4) looked extremely inept trying to stop Green Bay’s rushing attack.
The Packers (7-2) averaged 6 yards per carry, and the odd thing is, that number feels low as Green Bay run through and several times over Carolina defenders. Aaron Jones finished with 93 yards rushing and three touchdowns on just 13 carries.
Carolina has given up more 10-yard runs this season than any team in the NFL.
“It does (have to get better),” Rivera said run defense. “Talking about it is not good enough. We work on it, but we’ve just got to get better at it.
It’d be one thing if it was just the defense against the run that was troublesome, but the secondary had issues, and the many like Eric Reid seemed as though they were trying to play touch football as opposed to tackle.
There were also issues with many defensive penalties, including one that allowed Green Bay to kick a field goal after having just missed an attempt, but got another opportunity at it because of a defensive violation.
Offensively, Carolina was pretty solid.
Allen, who is 6-2 as a starter since taking over in Week 17 of last season, was unflappable in his performance, despite playing on the road in bad weather conditions against the team he grew up cheering for and a quarterback that he cheered for as a fan.
Moreover, he also had little to no help from his offensive line as Green Bay had nine quarterback hits and three sacks.
Even so, Allen threw for a career-high 307 yards and led the Panthers into Green Bay territory on eight of the team’s nine drives.
In the closing minutes with Carolina trailing by 8, Allen made impressive play after impressive play, including converting a couple of fourth downs to keep the potential game-tying drive alive.
But unfortunately for Allen, he had fumbled a snap and forced a bad throw in the Packers end zone on second down that was intercepted and took away a scoring chance.
“For me to turn the ball over twice, it put us in a bad position, and I think at the end of the day, that’s the main reason why we lost,” Allen said. “I know I’m a young guy,” Allen said Allen. “I’m the quarterback of this team. I can’t be doing that.
“This is a very talented team. And when we play clean football, we can win a lot of games. And it doesn’t matter what age I am or how many starts I have. I have to play clean football or else it’s not fair to this team.”
With the loss, Carolina fails to pick up a game on NFC South-leading New Orleans (7-2), which lost at home to Atlanta (2-7). The Panthers fall into ninth place in the NFC in their quest for the playoffs.