Carolina Panthers pull of a huge upset, defeating the New England Patriots 33-30!

Carolina Panthers pull off a huge upset, defeating the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots in their backyard. Carolina’s dramatic, 33-30 victory over New England at Gillette Stadium was back an offensive breakout from the Panthers, a team that scored 22 points total in its last two games and a last-second field goal. Newton and company matched the Patriots stride for stride early on. After Patriots opened the game with a 41-yard field goal, Carolina answered on the ensuing drive with a 32-yarder from Gano. The trend continued as Newton matched Brady’s 2-yard touchdown pass to receiver Chris Hogan with a 29-yard touchdown pass to running back Fozzy Whittaker. However, instead of matching Patriots field goal, Newton went ahead and toss a 10-yard touchdown strike to wide receiver Devin Funchess to give Carolina the lead at halftime. In the second half Newton found Funchess again for a 16-yard touchdown, then the next possession Newton scored on a 7-yard run to give the Panthers 30-16 lead. Brady and the Patriots would, of course, come back and tie it up with 3 minutes left. But Carolina drove 46 yards on 10 plays to let Gano kick the game winning 48-yard field goal.

            The MVP for today game is quarterback Cameron Newton, 22-29, 316 yards, 3 touchdowns and 1 interception. Cam looked like his MVP self if he plays like that the rest of the season, the Panthers are playoff bound. And with the win, Cam becomes the winningest quarterback in Panthers history, passing Jake Delhomme. Other big-time stats, Funchess finished the game with 70 yards receiving, the most since Week 17 of the 2015 season, and two touchdown catches. Kelvin Benjamin hauled in his first 100=yard receiving game of the season while Jonathan Stewart added 68 yards on the ground, becoming the Panthers’ all-time leading rusher. Luke Kuechly strung together at least four tackles in a row. On a defense that was patched together with duct tape in the secondary and with linebacker Thomas Davis (rib) obviously not at 100 percent, Kuechly got the team just organized enough to force a few field goals instead of touchdowns and did a ton himself. New England did score 30, but without Kuechly it would have been far worse than that. The ageless Julius Peppers had two big sacks of Tom Brady, bringing his season total to a team-high 4.5 after four games. Peppers is going to hit some of those contractual sack incentives he has by midseason at this pace. This week win makes next week’s game bigger, Carolina Panthers (3-1) and Detroit Lions (3-1) will face off in Michigan in a battle of two of the top teams in the NFL. 

Carolina Panthers defeat the Buffalo Bills 9-3, start the season 2-0!

The Carolina Panthers defeated the Buffalo Bills 9-3 in an ugly, physical, defensive game. Carolina becomes 2-0 to start the season, while Buffalo drops to 1-1. Buffalo trailed for the entire game, but game the Carolina a scare in the final moments, nearly executing the two-minute drill to perfection. Bills’ quarterback Tyrod Taylor worked the sidelines on a drive that began at Buffalo’s 25-yard line with just over two-minute remaining. A string of completed passes and couple of scrambles gave Bills a shot at the end zone from 38 yards out with 14 seconds left. Rookie Zay Jones broke free near the right pylon, but couldn’t haul in Taylor’s slightly overthrown pass to steal the victory. Carolina Panthers Kicker Graham Gano made field goals of 34,28 and 20, last of which gave Carolina a 9-3 lead with 2:38 to play. Gano is 6-6 on field goals this season. Neither team scored a touchdown in today’s game.

            The MVP for the Panthers for this game would be the defense in general. Holding Bills star running back LeSean McCoy to 9 yards on 12 carries, sacking QB Taylor 3 times and only allowing the Bills to have 10 first down in this game. Most importantly in the first two games of this season, Panthers defense has only given up 6 whole points and haven’t given up a touchdown yet. Julius Peppers made 6 tackles, 2 sacks in his home opener since re-signing with the Panthers. Before today the Panthers were injury free but that quickly changes, center Ryan Kalil dressed but didn’t play after waking up with a sore neck and the biggest injury for the Panthers left in the first half of what he confirmed afterward is a broken right foot. Cam Newton was 20 of 32 for 228 yards, 0 TD, and 0 INT. Kelvin Benjamin, after being targeted only twice in the season opener at San Francisco, caught six passes on eight targets for 77 yards.

            Even though the Panthers won this game, there’s clearly something the Panthers need to work on. McCaffrey had another rough day, Offensive coordinator Mike Shula needs to learn how to use him correctly and not force play him. Cam Newton, even though he played a great game, was throwing the ball with great velocity, and still can scrambles very effectively. But he must learn to not overthrow his receivers. Ever since joining the league one of his biggest problems is overthrowing receivers, Gettleman drafted Benjamin and Funchess, both receivers are 7 feet tall but Cam still overthrows them. With little over two minutes left in today game, it was third and goal on the three-yard line, Cam overthrew a wide-open McCaffrey who would’ve scored and sealed the game. Cam almost cost the game for the Panthers. He also needs to learn clock management; every game Panthers burn at least one timeout because Cam can’t hike the ball before the game clock hits zero and in today’s game burn two timeouts and called for delay of game. I know this sounds like I hate Cam Newton, I don’t, I love Cam. He’s a top 10 quarterbacks in the NFL and one of the greatest QB in Panthers history just needs to fix major flaws in his game. Carolina Panthers (2-0) host the New Orleans (0-2) next Sunday.

            What did you think of today's’ Panthers victory? Tell me in the comment section below! And make sure to check back here sometime in the middle of the week for a preview of the Saints game but till then Follow me on Twitter @CarolinaFlights and subscribe to my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/mOeZ564dOnE! 

Cam brought back the Dab in the first quarter of this game.