‘We are going to wear that’: Panthers didn’t do anything right in ugly loss to Saints

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The Panthers dug themselves a 17-point hole before quarterback Bryce Young completed his first pass of the game on Sunday at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

That’s just one ugly aspect of Carolina’s performance.

During a 47-10 shellacking in Week 1, the Saints exposed the Panthers in all three phases, as they subdued Young’s ability to pass, created big plays in the passing game with their own QB, Derek Carr, and unleashed an onslaught of field-goals from their impressively accurate kicker, Blake Grupe.

It was a blowout of epic proportions, and there was little room to hide from the embarrassment as players filtered out of the locker room in the bowels of the stadium after the game.

“Real frustrating,” safety Jordan Fuller said. “I haven’t been a part of too many games like that.”

The Saints scored on their first nine possessions. While three turnovers and a blocked punt helped set up New Orleans’ offense for success with prime field position, the Carolina defense looked wildly overmatched all afternoon.

Fuller pushed back at the notion that the defense lost focus on Sunday. It was a frustrating performance, but the safety said the unit didn’t back down, despite the outcome.

“I wouldn’t say we quit or laid down or anything like that,” Fuller said.

And while it’s easy to point up at the scoreboard and blame the defense, the offense didn’t do much, if anything, to stop the bleeding.

“That’s the thing,” center Austin Corbett said. “Defense is giving up touchdowns — well, we gave them a short field....

“And so it’s this complete complementary game that we’re looking for, that we’re going to build, and we’re going to put together to make sure all these things are working. Because when you’re out there it’s like, ‘The defense is back out there.’ Well, they haven’t gotten a break, so we need to do our job, hold up our end of the bargain, and put a drive together, so that they can get time to rest and recover and go over things and be able to make adjustments. We didn’t help them out, and that’s part of complementary ball.”

Sunday’s performance was shackled by the failing of all three units — offense, defense and special teams. It was a collective disaster.

Young tossed a pair of picks and wide receiver Jonathan Mingo fumbled away the ball. The offense produced less scoring drives (two) than turnovers (three) and kept the punting unit and defense on the field throughout the game. And in turn, both the special teams and defensive units surrendered big plays that only piled on the points for the Saints in one-sided game.

“It does make it harder,” Young said of the mistakes. “Of course, you want to come out and start off on a high note. It happened today (that we got behind early). We are going to wear that today. We’re going to learn from it when we turn on the film tomorrow.

“It doesn’t define us. It’s obviously a long year. We have to attack it with urgency and make sure that we are urgent about putting points up and fix what we’ve got to fix. We’ve got to turn the page again. It’s a tough league. It would have been great to win the game. The goal is to win every one. That isn’t the case. We’ve got to turn the page and focus on next week.”

Next week features a matchup with the Los Angeles Chargers at home. Los Angeles is coming off a 22-10 win over the Las Vegas Raiders, and like the Saints, feature a quarterback in Justin Herbert, who can sling the ball down the field.

Last season, the Panthers, with Young under center, had a habit of getting behind early. While those previous exploits weren’t as gnarly as Sunday’s letdown, the Panthers need to prevent a snowball effect that essentially wipes out any chance of optimism before October rolls around.

Quick hits

▪ The Panthers had nine kick return opportunities on Sunday. Running back Raheem Blackshear returned eight of them for an average of 25.5 yards per return. First-round pick, wide receiver Xavier Legette, had a 28-yard return on the fourth kickoff of the day. Legette also finished with four catches for 35 yards on seven targets.

▪ The Panthers went 1-for-10 on third down (10%) against the Saints. Conversely, the Saints went 7-of-13 for a conversion rate of 53.8%.

▪ Young’s 3-yard rushing touchdown was the first of his career. Young’s 13-of-30 passing performance was his worst since last year’s 28-6 defeat (13-of-36) in New Orleans. Last year, Young threw for just 137 yards but avoided throwing an interception. He had two picks on Sunday.

▪ Tight end Feleipe Franks recovered a muffed punt in the closing 1:06 of the game. He was promoted from the practice squad on Saturday.

▪ Second-year outside linebacker Eku Leota notched his first career sack on Carr in the second quarter. He finished the game with four tackles, with three of them going for a loss of yardage, including the sack.