Once, long ago, the Carolina Panthers scored a touchdown. Do you even remember when?

If it feels like it’s been nearly eight months since you’ve seen the Carolina Panthers score a touchdown, well, that’s because it has.

The Panthers last found the end zone on Christmas Eve 2023, in the fourth quarter of a loss to the Green Bay Packers, on a TD pass from Bryce Young to the now-departed D.J. Chark. They didn’t score at all in the final two regular-season games last year, then fired a lot of people, then got only a late field goal in their first game of the Dave Canales era — a 17-3 slog of a preseason loss at New England.

This was a game that was about as much fun to watch as Tropical Storm Debby’s endless deluge, which was what we all were subjected to Thursday on a bring-your-own-snorkel day in the Charlotte area. The Panthers found a tad better weather in Massachusetts but not much else, although this was in part because they purposely suited up a team full of second- and third-stringers.

Canales rested an enormous amount of starters and top backups — 33 of them in all, including Young. As is often the case with the Panthers, no matter whether the starters or the subs are playing, the defense and special teams were still OK, and the offense was excruciating.

It didn’t get better after the game ended. The Panthers’ Delta charter flight with 188 people aboard landed normally in Charlotte in the wee hours Friday morning, but then part of the airplane went off the taxiway just before 3 a.m., the airline confirmed. The plane was carrying Panthers’ players and staff, according to a team spokesperson. There were no injuries, but that obviously wasn’t an ideal situation for anyone.

I didn’t attend this game in person, watching it instead on TV. Analyst Steve Smith and play-by-play man Anish Shroff were several times more entertaining than the game, at one point going off on a long riff about the comedy classic “Napoleon Dynamite” and quarterback wannabe Uncle Rico, which was more riveting than anything on the field.

At another point, Smith said of third-string Panther quarterback Jack Plummer, who played practically the entire game, generated zero points and had nearly taken a safety while holding the ball too long: “Jack Plummer needs to learn pocket presence. They’re coming. He’s back there like he’s waiting on an Uber.”

Poor Plummer. He got thrown out there with a backup offensive line and backup receivers, who did him no favors by dropping a couple of very catchable balls. Any Ubers that might have saved him were turning around at the last minute and going the other way.

The Panthers had eight possessions in the first half, with seven ending in punts and the final one ending with them running out the clock so they wouldn’t have to punt an eighth time.

“A rough night,” Canales termed it for Plummer.

A few more Carolina stats: For the game, the Panthers had seven first downs and 10 punts. It had 151 total yards. The quarterbacks got sacked five times. The Panthers were penalized nine times for 61 yards.

It all felt a little sad and familiar. Preseason has a way of bogging down your brain even in the best of times. And Carolina, after all, did go an NFL-worst 2-15 last season. What exactly did we expect?

But the last couple of weeks have been so full of bravura performances in the Olympics — did you catch Steph Curry and Team USA’s comeback from 17 points down against Serbia on Thursday? — that the Panthers’ performance seemed even flatter than usual by comparison.

Again, the defense was pretty good (New England let first-round draft pick Drake Maye, the former UNC star, throw three nondescript passes before quickly ushering him off the field to make sure he didn’t get hurt). And backup Panthers kicker Harrison “Thiccer Kicker” Mevis at least made sure Carolina didn’t get shut out with a 41-yard field goal in the final two minutes. Punter Johnny Hekker made a cool tackle. Linebacker Eku Leota flashed several times. Canales said he was “excited,” partly because he’s always excited but partly because he got to really be a real head coach Thursday, even though it was for a fake game.

Mostly, though, it was drudgery.

Maybe this will change when Young plays in the preseason — if he plays in the preseason. Canales is being canny about that, which I would guess means Young isn’t going to play at all until Sept. 8, when Carolina opens the regular season at New Orleans.

Until then? Well, maybe the Panthers are going to score a touchdown, somehow, against the New York Jets in their lone preseason home game Aug. 17. It’s only been 229 days and counting. They’re due.

In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go figure out what streaming service has “Napoleon Dynamite.”

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