Sir Purr
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2019
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It would be easy to overstate some of the individual components of the game. They played well enough on defense, but it wasn't as much a lockdown performance as it was receiving the gifts Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins gave them.
Washington ended up benching Haskins, when a win would have secured the NFC East title.
And the second part of that sentence wasn't lost on the Panthers.
Cornerback Donte Jackson said it became a pride thing: "We're not going to let you clinch on us."
Some day, their goals will be about them, but at the moment, this is what they have to grab onto.
"A lot of parts of this season, we were searching to find our identity, to find out what we do and what we have," Jackson said. "That's what we're doing. We were trying to find our identity, but we found it.
"We're hard, we're tough-nosed, and we're going to fight for a whole game. That's what we're preaching on that side of the ball. Shaq Thompson keeps preaching to keep guys going, and he has us out there with a lot of confidence. That's what we're going to do."
The defense needed to carry the day because the Panthers' offense still wasn't anything resembling smooth.
They needed Brandon Zylstra's recovery of a muffed punt for a touchdown to break a slow start for both teams, and when that happened, the Panthers' offense and defense ran onto the field in a moment of jubilation.
That caused a brief moment of consternation for head coach Matt Rhule (who was worried about having enough guys on the field for the extra point, which they missed), but he liked the theme that his guys were celebrating something collectively.