The Carolina Panthers were spotted 14 points by the Miami Dolphins this afternoon. But, that ultimately did not matter.
That 14-0 edge eventually turned into a 42-21 loss for the Panthers, who moved to 0-6 on the campaign. Nonetheless, head coach Frank Reich does believe some elements from the sixth straight defeat could help his winless team in the long run.
“There’s positive things to build on,” Reich said. “Obviously, you lose by three touchdowns—so nothing feels good about it. Nothing. But we’ll look at the tape and I know there’s good things on the tape. So, we’ll get better from the good and the bad.”
Despite heading into South Beach as massive underdogs, the Panthers came out swinging on the Dolphins. Not only did they piece together 64-yard and 74-yard touchdown drives in the first quarter, but they shut down the dynamic Miami offense in jumping out to a shocking 14-0 lead.
That Miami offense, however, did what they do—they exploded. The Dolphins proceeded to rip off 35 unanswered points, sawing through the Panthers for 424 total yards and six touchdowns.
So Reich, much like after last week’s loss, then stated that his players have to stick together through this discouraging start.
“We got 11 games left,” he said. “Anything can happen. Anything can happen. You just come back and get better. That’s what I think we all know in our room. I think that’s what we all believe. If you commit to getting better and you commit to hanging together, we can do some damage. We can win football games. We can win a lot of football games. So, that’s what we’ll do.”
