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November 03, 2003
Texans trip Panthers
Carolina cannot hold early lead, loses 14-10
By Joe Menzer | JOURNAL REPORTER
The Carolina Panthers learned a basic but important lesson the hard way yesterday while dropping a 14-10 decision to the Houston Texans in front of 70,052 at Reliant Stadium.
No one knew this more than Coach John Fox of the Panthers. He summed up the loss in three brief sentences.
"Yards don't win games. Points do. We had opportunities to make plays to get more points, and we just didn't make them," Fox said.
The Panthers dominated the first half behind the spectacular running of Stephen Davis, who piled up 107 yards rushing on 23 carries in the first two quarters and finished with 153 on 30 attempts. But their lead was only 7-0 because they made too many costly mistakes, a pattern that would continue into the second half. That's when the Texans took control and eventually the lead on a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Tony Banks to tight end Billy Miller with 9:30 remaining in the fourth quarter.
The Panthers had been used to winning close games on kicks, but lost this one at least in part because of one when wide receiver Steve Smith was penalized 15 yards for unnecessary roughness after kicking Jerry Deloach of the Texans on a critical play in the fourth quarter. Coupled with a dropped pass by wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad two plays later, it killed a potential Carolina scoring drive and took the Panthers out of field-goal range.
Smith said that he kicked Deloach because Deloach, a 315-pound defensive end, was on Smith's ankle and attempting to hurt him by applying pressure to it as he got to his feet after making a tackle on Smith. Fox said that was no excuse.
"Steve didn't use good judgment and hurt our football team," Fox said.
The end result: instead of the Panthers facing a second-and-3 situation at the Houston 35-yard line, they found themselves bogged down at second and 18 on the 46. Quarterback Jake Delhomme then threw an incomplete pass intended for Davis before hitting Muhammad square in the numbers on third and 18, only to have Muhammad drop the ball.
Once the Texans regained possession with 5:55 remaining after a punt by Carolina's Todd Sauerbrun, they ran all but one second off the clock. All the Panthers could do then was try a desperation play where running back Nick Goings caught a pass from Delhomme, ran 9 yards and tossed a lateral to Smith, who scampered for another 32 before finally being brought down by the Texans at their own 30-yard line after the clock had run out.
The loss left the Panthers with a 6-2 record at the halfway point of the season, while the Texans improved to 3-5. The Panthers maintained a two-game lead in the NFC South division over the Tampa Bay Bucaneers, who lost to New Orleans yesterday to fall to 4-4. The Bucs visit Ericsson Stadium on Sunday to play the Panthers.
Defensive tackle Brentson Buckner said that the Panthers obviously must put yesterday's loss behind them quickly, but added that it was a difficult one to absorb.
"It's only one game, but I hope it's not a game where we get to the end of the year and look back on it and say, "Oh, I wish we would have (won that one).'" Buckner said. "It's hard to get victories. And when you let one slip through your hands like we did today, it's very painful."
The Panthers let it slip away, truthfully, because they buried the Texans in every which way in the first half except for on the scoreboard. The Panthers simply made too many mistakes, including an interception thrown by Delhomme that cornerback Aaron Glenn of the Texans pulled down in the end zone.
"In that case, you've just got to throw it in the cheap seats. They played the play well, but we shouldn't have just given them the ball," Fox said.
Delhomme agreed, but placed some of the blame on wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad for not making a better play on the ball.
"It was just a little miscommunication (with Muhammad). I tried to force it down there. We were trying to get a big one. You can't have those kinds of mistakes," Delhomme said.
There were plenty more of those kinds of mistakes in the second half - with none looming bigger than Smith's penalty and the repeated third-down failures of the Carolina defense that enabled the Texans' offense to stay on the field and forced the Panthers' Davis to remain on the sideline.
After out-gaining the Texans 209 yards to 61 in the first half, the Panthers were out-gained 206-158 in the second half. The two biggest third-down conversions by the Texans came when Banks kept the fourth-quarter touchdown drive alive by completing a 35-yard pass to wide receiver Andre Johnson on a third-and-18 play, and on a 21-yard Banks pass to Miller on third and 12 just before the two-minute warning.
Those plays and others like them enabled the Texans to hold the ball for 11:24 in the fourth quarter, while the Panthers had just one full possession in each of the last two quarters and had the ball for a total of 3:36 in the fourth.
The time of possession discrepancy in the second half was too much for the Panthers to overcome, according to strong safety Mike Minter. Then again, he added, it was the Panthers' own fault.
"We had to make the plays coming down the stretch and we didn't," Minter said. "I'm mad because we let this one slip away. We had missed opportunities all over the field. As a defense, we couldn't get them off the field on third down like we had to. We should have made the plays and we didn't."
Smith scored the Panthers' only touchdown on a 24-yard pass from Delhomme to cap a 12-play, 68-yard drive on the first possession of the game for either team. But the Panthers got no points out of their next possession after driving right down the field again because Delhomme threw the interception in the end zone. They were forced to settle for a 23-yard field goal by John Kasay in the third quarter when tight end Jermaine Wiggins dropped a Delhomme pass in the end zone on what would have been a touchdown.
"We moved up and down the field; we just didn't get the points. That's what wins games in this league," Fox said.
• Joe Menzer can be reached at jmenzer@wsjournal.com