Optimistic Panthers show fight, focus on future

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Panthers guard Robert Hunt has been in playoff games at raucous Buffalo and Kansas City but said the energy at Bank of America Stadium in Saturday’s 34-31 loss to the heavily favored Los Angeles Rams could “compete with anyone.”

“This place was rocking,” Hunt said. “That was beautiful, and that was real playoff football.”

The Panthers and quarterback Bryce Young proved they could compete with anyone after taking the Rams, a 10-point favorite, to the wire despite an 8-9 regular-season record.

Hunt said playoff football “is definitely something to look forward to” in Carolina’s future.

“We’ve got a group of guys, core group of guys, that’s coming back,” he said. “We took a really, really good team, who I think could go win the Super Bowl, to the end of the game.”

Safety Nick Scott agreed.

“I don’t think anybody in this locker room doubted that we deserved to be in the playoffs, regardless of what our record said,” Scott noted. “We proved that today. We proved that we’re supposed to be here and that we’re the team we said we are.”

The Panthers backed into the playoffs with an 8-9 record after losing their last two games of the regular season. They weren’t assured the NFC South title until the Atlanta Falcons defeated the New Orleans Saints on Sunday to create a three-way tie with Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Carolina.

The Panthers won the tiebreaker and No. 4 seed in the NFC based on a 3-1 record between the three.

Young didn’t play particularly well in the last two games, adding fuel to speculation that he wasn’t a long-term solution for the organization that drafted him No. 1 in 2023.

But Young threw for 264 yards and a touchdown and rushed three times for 24 yards and a touchdown against the Rams to show he could keep pace with potential league MVP Matthew Stafford, who had three touchdown passes and an interception.

Young’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Coker in the left back corner of the end zone to give Carolina a 31-27 lead with 2:39 remaining was perfectly thrown.

It sent the packed crowd into a frenzy that was quieted only by Stafford’s winning 19-yard touchdown pass to tight end Colby Parkinson with 38 seconds to go.

“Bank of America Stadium was electric,” second-year coach Dave Canales said after Carolina fell short in its first home playoff game since the 2015 NFC Championship Game.

The Panthers made it electric by overcoming a 14-0 deficit in which they looked like they deserved to be heavy underdogs to pull within 17-14 at halftime. They led twice in the fourth quarter, 27-24 and 31-27.

They pulled even despite losing left tackle Ikem Ekwonu early to a knee injury that Canales said was “significant” and something the team will have to deal with during the offseason. The Panthers also were missing Hunt for a while after the guard popped his right pectoral in his first game back after suffering a torn biceps in his left arm in Week 2.

Young said the whole season has been “part of us coming into our own.”

“Obviously, we had some ups and downs,” he added. “I’m so proud of the way everybody responded to adversity. Whatever it may be, the way we fought, the way we always stuck together, the way we always were always on to the next [game]. Special. Special locker room.”

Cornerback Mike Jackson, whose fourth quarter interception set up the first go-ahead touchdown, said the same people who questioned if Carolina belonged in the playoffs are the ones who will question the Panthers’ soft coverage in the final minutes with star cornerback Jaycee Horn in the concussion protocol.

“Like at the end of the day, nobody gave us a chance,” Jackson said. “The people that’s questioning it, let me see what you’ve been doing. Show me your credentials. How [do] you know coverage, and how you know when to blitz and not to blitz.

“You’ve got armchair quarterbacks, but at the end of the day you’re not doing this for [them].”