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The Carolina Panthers dropped their fifth contest in the last six weeks on Sunday when the New England Patriots rolled into Bank of America Stadium and walked away with a 24-6 win. Christian McCaffrey led the team in both rushing and receiving, totaling 106 yards on 18 offensive touches, but his outing was overshadowed by the overall ineptitude of the team’s offense.

The Panthers struggled to move the football in this one, totaling just 240 yards of total offense, including just 78 rushing yards on 23 carries. While the Panthers had their issues offensively, it wasn’t as if the Patriots faired much better, as they finished the day with just 273 yards of total offense to their name and averaged just 4.6 yards per play to the Panthers 4.2 per play.

As Jim Szoke, one of the voices of the Panther Radio Network explained, though, turnovers were the biggest difference in this one. “In a game like this, that’s when the turnovers become so critical,” Szoke told the Mac Attack on Monday morning. “Yesterday they (New England) had two, but the three we had were so egregious in terms of why they happened.” The Panthers turned the football over three consecutive drives with back-to-back-to-back Sam Darnold interceptions, which resulted in ten points for the Patriots, seemingly putting the Panthers away late in the third quarter.

 

With the loss the Panthers fall to 4-5 on the season and drop out of the seventh seed in the NFC and into the basement of the NFC South. The Panthers will travel to Arizona this coming Saturday and we will preview that matchup throughout the week here on WFNZ and also on the Countdown to Kickoff presented by DeWalt at 2:00 PM on Sunday with Chris McClain, Brett Jensen and Nick Carboni.