‘Missed’ chances hurt Panthers vs. Chiefs. One player says questionable penalties did, too

In his Monday press conference — less than 24 hours after the Carolina Panthers were one missed field goal away from taking the juggernaut Kansas City Chiefs to overtime — Dave Canales made something clear:

There are no moral victories.

In fact, if not for a few missed opportunities still fresh on his mind, his team could’ve notched a defining win of a new era of Panthers football.

”In general, the message is, ‘This is the brand of football that we can play,’” the Panthers’ head coach said. “And on top of that, it’s, ‘Let’s get back to work and see what we missed out there.’ I feel like there was a lot of meat left on the bone.”

It’s true the Panthers are 3-8. But it’s also true that’s about where most sportsbooks predicted the Panthers would be at this point in the season — and that there has been a lot of progression as the season has gone on.

Bryce Young’s confidence issues feel like “a lifetime ago,” according to at least one of his teammates. The receivers are producing. Chuba Hubbard is having a career year. The defense is finding its personality after losing a few of its best players to injury.

But even throughout all the progress, Canales wasn’t exactly happy. He pointed out a few missed opportunities, specifically:

▪ Third-down defense. The Panthers allowed the Chiefs to be quite efficient on the most important down — 8-for-13 to be precise. That compared to Carolina’s 5-for-13 percentage is tough. That’s a big reason why the Chiefs opened the game with five consecutive scoring drives and didn’t have to punt until the fourth quarter.

▪ The touchdown at the end of the first half. At the end of the second quarter, Kansas City did what it has done the past four years and closed out its halves well. This one was a two-minute drill drive that ended with a Noah Gray touchdown with 44 seconds left in the half. Canales recalled “a third-and-long and came up with a nice throw and catch for the touchdown, which ended up being a difference in the game there.”

▪ Trading field goals for touchdowns. The Panthers didn’t find the end zone until the second half even after threatening on three of their first four drives — including right before the half, with Young making a few difficult throws into the end zone and having some of those (tightly contested) catches bounce off receivers hands.

Canales had some thoughts on those red zone woes.

“There were a couple of missed opportunities, some near misses on a couple of throws, I think those are things we’ll continue to improve on, just with time on task, and just continuing to grow the chemistry between Bryce and between the wide receivers,” Canales said. “I think the Chiefs’ defense, they rushed us really well down there, and they played some coverages and complements to the things that we did, so they made it challenging as well, and that’s kind of life in the red zone when you face a good team that can rush you with four and play different coverages.

“So they made it challenging, certainly from that standpoint.”

Jadeveon Clowney has some thoughts on the penalties

It wasn’t just those three instances on the minds of Panthers players. At least to veteran pass rusher Jadeveon Clowney, there were some questionable calls (and no-calls) made on Sunday that helped make a difference in the game.

Clowney specifically said he was confused why Jaycee Horn — Carolina’s top cornerback — was called so many times for offensive holding.

“You cut the tape on, you can’t say it was all (pass interference) calls,” Clowney told reporters Monday. “He plays like that every week and wasn’t getting that many calls. But this week, I guess he’s going up against DeAndre Hopkins, who’s — don’t get me wrong — one of the best wide receivers that has played the game the last 10 or 11 years, so of course he’s going to get some calls against Jaycee, who’s up and coming.

“It’s a competitive game, and you just gotta let guys compete and don’t get the flags involved every time it’s a gotta-have-it situation. ... And when they didn’t get it, all of a sudden it’s a flag out? It’s like, ‘C’mon.’”

Clowney — who ended Sunday with 1.5 sacks and has come alive in the past few weeks with D.J. Wonnum opposite him — also took reporters through that game-sealing scramble by Patrick Mahomes and the difficult balance of playing on instinct but also wanting to not hit him before he opts to run out of bounds.

“When you watch the play, you think he’s gonna run out of bounds because, you know, the rules, you don’t want to hit nobody going out of bounds, especially him, he gets a lot of flags,” Clowney said. “He does a lot of flopping on the sideline when he gets close to it. But he turned the corner, you could see a couple guys stop, think he’s gonna run out of bounds, he kept going down the sideline. I feel like we just gotta finish on them plays. Give him credit for being smart, you see him do it a lot throughout the games.”

Clowney added: “On our end, we just gotta finish them plays. And just hit them, regardless of where he at on the field and just finish, and let the refs decide what it’s gonna be, even though you don’t want to put it in their hands because they really had their hands in the game throughout the whole game we played yesterday.”

Ja’Tavion Sanders neck injury update

Canales offered some good news on Monday when it comes to the injury status of rookie tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders, who exited the game on a stretcher after falling on the crown of his helmet at the end of the first half.

Canales said Sanders avoided a serious neck injury.

“Right now, it appears that we avoided a really, pretty bad injury, based on the nature of the play,” Canales said. “But it is a neck injury. He’s here. He’s in the building. He’s getting worked on. We’re still evaluating all of that. We’re going to have to take that all the way to Wednesday to see what his availability is for this week. But again, that’s something we’ll have to be really diligent about, in terms of collecting all the information and data that we have.”

Sanders, who was taken to but was later discharged from a Charlotte hospital, is having a great rookie season. The former Texas Longhorn had three catches for 49 yards on Sunday and entered Sunday with more receiving yards through 11 games than any Carolina tight end had since 2019 — back when Greg Olsen was stacking numbers in a Panthers jersey.

Ian Thomas holds the Panthers’ rookie record for receiving yards for a tight end at 333 yards, a record that Sanders looked set to break. Sanders sits at 302 receiving yards on the year.

Quick hits

▪ Xavier Legette, after dropping a deep pass in the fourth quarter on Sunday, said he texted Young on Sunday night to apologize to him and say that passes “don’t get much better than that.” Young responded by saying that he believes in Legette — who almost exclusively played the X spot Sunday — and that there are many big plays between the two of them in the future.

▪ Punter Johnny Hekker was named as the team’s Art Rooney Award nominee. The award, which has nominees from every team, “recognizes individuals around the league who exemplify outstanding sportsmanship,” per a release.

▪ Pro Bowl voting opened on Monday morning. Fan voting is a component of who gets into the NFL’s All-Star contest and who doesn’t. The Panthers have only sent one player in each of the past two years — Brian Burns in 2022 and Derrick Brown in 2023. Cast your vote at NFL.com/pro-bowl-games/vote.

▪ Jonathon Brooks made his NFL debut Sunday. He ran the ball twice for 7 yards and only played five offensive snaps.

▪ Former Vikings cornerback Akayleb Evans was waived on Saturday and was subsequently claimed by the Panthers, a league source confirmed to The Observer on Monday. NFL Network had the news first. In a corresponding move to get the roster to the league-max 53 players, the Panthers waived Charles Harris, the outside linebacker who had a tied-for-team-best three sacks on the year. Evans has played in seven games and has notched two tackles in 2024.