Field Gulls
The Seattle Seahawks once again shook off a slow start on offense and rode a second half surge to a comfortable win. They were tied 3-3 with the Carolina Panthers on a gloomy, foggy afternoon in Charlotte, but the 27-10 final score made the first half seem like a distant memory.
It’s time for Enemy Reaction for the Panthers, which we haven’t done in six years. Game thread comments are courtesy of Cat Scratch Reader, and having written this sentence before doing the screenshots, I’m curious to see how harsh they were on Bryce Young and the offense as a whole for this performance knowing they could’ve won the NFC South on Sunday.
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The Panthers’ offense was overwhelmed by Seattle’s formidable defense from start to finish. Bryce Young never had a chance to get into any rhythm, and the turnovers from the signal-caller and running back Chuba Hubbard proved costly. Carolina’s defense did what it could, but it was left rueing critical errors and lapses in concentration in key moments.
Macdonald was always two steps ahead of Canales. The coach can do nothing about his players’ execution — or lack thereof — but there weren’t many schematic adjustments throughout the clash when things clearly weren’t clicking. Everything was a little too conservative, and Seattle could see what was coming from a mile away.
The result was a foregone conclusion by the third quarter, in all honesty. Canales carries the can, but he’ll no doubt be frustrated by some of his key men not turning up in their typical manner. Whether that would have changed much versus an NFL powerhouse is highly doubtful, so the primary objective now is to shake off this terrible outing before their winner-take-all clash at the Buccaneers in Week 18.
Young had...