The Panthers could have played it safe yesterday, and tried to milk the clock and force overtime with the Chiefs.
But as seems to be consistent with their season, things as seemingly unrelated as a hamstring injury to punter Andy Lee and a penalty on a backup linebacker forced them to play-call a bit more aggressively and it cost them a win.
Tied at 17, the Panthers got the ball back with 29 seconds left in the game, backed up to their own 20 after a block in the back penalty on linebacker David Mayo.
So with the Chiefs holding all three timeouts and none of their own, and the Panthers relying on kicker Graham Gano to punt because of Lee’s injury, Panthers coach Ron Rivera went into Riverboat mode.
“One thing we knew is they tend to play soft in those types of situations initially because they don’t want to give up a big play,” Rivera said, via Bill Voth of Black and Blue Review. “They want to try to keep you in front of them, and you can get a couple big chunk plays and then who knows? Somebody makes a play and then you’re in field goal position.
“The thing that concerned me is he had three timeouts, and our kicker had to be our punter. They have a pretty good return game; we know that, and we saw them break one. So being backed up, the thought was if we can get ourselves in position, who knows?”
Unfortunately for Rivera, the guy who made the play was Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters, who stripped the ball away from Kelvin Benjamin on first down to set up their game-winning field goal.
Rivera said he wasn’t sure if Lee was going to be able to play Thursday night against the Saints, so the Panthers might have to go find a punter this week anyway, lest they get into another such situation with their season on the line.