WRAL’s Chris Lea and Louis Fernandez react to the Carolina Panthers’ 47-10 loss to NFC South rival New Orleans Saints.

47 to 10, a few turnovers. A blocked punt. Y is just about all I can say when I look at this Carolina Panthers game, let’s go ahead and bring in Wral sports anchor Chris Lee. Chris, you, you’ve seen all the bad stuff that happened. What was your initial reaction as all this was unfolding in New Orleans? My initial reaction was, um, you know, my expectations of a six to maybe eight win season. Those expectations are way too high for the Carolina Panthers. I thought that improving from two wins from last year was gonna be like the natural evolution of things and it doesn’t look like that’s the case. We’ve seen bad losses before, but when everything looks so bad, not only just in one phase of the ball because last year it was all about the offense, but at least the defense looked good. At least special teams didn’t really hurt you as much. Most of the time today’s game showed that all three phases of the ball just were not ready today and that is not a recipe for anything good in the NFL. I don’t really come away with anything good from this game, at least last year we had at least something to lean on. Hey, the defense was ok. So if the offense can catch up, maybe things will get better. There was none of that coming out of today’s game. Uh Bryce Young, I, I remember when, when he, oh, indeed, when he steps into the huddle very first drive. All right. Let’s see what you got very first pass and overthrow up the middle intercepted. Uh I think he completed about 43% of his passes, about 100 and 50 passing yards, two interceptions. II, I mean, where, where do you even go with, with that? You were hoping to see a jump? I know it’s only game one but like, wow, you know, I thought about the game, uh, that started the season off last year at Atlanta where he also was picked off twice, but that was his, you know, debut in the NFL. And also if you look at those two plays where he was picked off, it was also probably just a better play from Jesse Bates to safety from the Falcons. These two interceptions today were just bad. He was simply just missing players, the young that we heard of coming out of Alabama who is uh accurate, who can process, who’s on time. Didn’t look like any of that today. He reminded me of a worse version of Kyle Allen for the Carolina Panthers and, and that’s not a good thing at all. Uh, when you are not identifying corner blitzes and you’re good at putting yourself in harm’s way, that’s not good at all and everything that was wrong last year, I’m not gonna put blame on Bryce Young for anything that happened last year. Coaching staff was messed up. Offensive line was messed up. Receivers weren’t doing anything for him and they, the Carolina Panthers, uh, changed all of that. They fixed all of that in the off season. So now Bryce Young, no things aren’t perfect and no, you’re not gonna jump from the worst team in the league up to top half of the league. No, but you can at least show some, uh, market improvement and he hasn’t done that the 1st 11 starts, he had, he, uh completed 20 or more passes in each of those 11 since then. He’s been sliding. So this is a continuation of last year. So whatever yips he developed after that 11 start last year where he just started sliding. He’s still doing that even with the other things around him being fixed and I, I just hope he can kind of come up with himself because you don’t have much longer until people are gonna start calling you a bust. Anthony Richardson will Levis CJ. Stroud all had solid games today. Sam Arnold had a solid game today. And what do all those guys have in common? The Panthers chose Bryce Young over those guys, Bryce. You’ve got to step up four sacks. The offense was also one of 10 on third down. So especially in the first half, they, they really didn’t even have an opportunity to do much, but we talked a lot about the offense. I want to turn to the defense now and while the, the yards that the Saints put up aren’t necessarily these gaudy numbers. There were a lot of big plays. Rashid Shaheed with the very first one out the gate. Um, and then a lot of rushing yarns just in general, whether that be coming from Alvin Ka or, or um, Tatum or, or anyone like that. WW what in general, Chris did you see from the defense? And what do you think they can do to fix it? There’s a lot of soul soul searching that has to happen. I was thinking that the defense was the thing that was gonna be solid from last year, right? Expected some changes expected maybe a little bit of slippage, right? But you had the entire defensive staff that was there with the Carolina Panthers to return this year. That’s rare in the NFL. Uh there was a lot of turnover on defense, but then you get Shaq Thompson who’s returning from injury and you have all these guys that were filled in who have once played for Iiro EO either with the Rams or Denver Broncos, they’re familiar with the scheme and the system and you figured that something would end up working that at least one side of the ball would take care of itself. And when you see Alvin Kamara get 45678 yards deep before being touched by the defense and then still breaking tackles and continuing. Um, that’s horrible. And the run stoppers that were supposed to stop that shy Tuttle, uh, Derek Brown as Shaun Robinson, that thick offensive defensive line, excuse me, that was supposed to be those run stoppers didn’t really stop anything. They could hold water. And then, uh, you have JC Horne who says, hey, if I’m healthy, I’m one of the best corners in the NFL and the first touchdown of, of the evening of the afternoon, Rasheed Shaheed literally just, just zooms right past him. And so that coverage guy and JC Horn, it didn’t, I didn’t see it today. And the problem that I had was your stars weren’t stars. Nobody stood out. There’s nobody that you can point to and say, ok, if people can follow this person’s lead, they will, uh, the Panthers will rally and get behind them. Jadeveon Clowney, where are you at? Paid a lot of money for you and didn’t really hear his name a lot. So there’s a lot of soul searching to be done even on the Panthers defensive side of the ball. And remember they were fourth in the league in defense last year, didn’t look anywhere near this year. Seems like a lot of miscommunications a lot of just not necessarily being comfortable within the system. So a lot to work on for there. Last thing Chris I wanna do is just kind of read off a couple of notes to you about this game. Just, just get your reaction here. Ok. Uh Let me get ready. Hey, 47 to 10 was the final score that 37 point differential was wider than any game last season when the Panthers finished as the worst team in the NFL. Think about that for a second. Yeah. And, and I think that’s their, their fourth worst loss uh in, in their entire history. Um I don’t wanna say anything about Dave Canalis right now. Um But his team did not look prepared and when you have a loss like this, that does go back on coaching. However, this is a rookie head coach, I’m going to, you know, save it for him for right now, but his players did not step up. Uh And I, I, I’m just waiting to see how they respond. Uh The, the main thing is the last few years when the Carolina Panthers have been bad. They usually respond by being just as bad as they were the week before. Can they respond next week against the Chargers at home? Mind you by being a little bit better than what they were this week. That is gonna be the true test of what Dave Canal is truly is. Otherwise, you gotta point the fingers all the way up to the top. Hey, David Tepper, since you’ve become owner, your team is the worst team in the NFL since 2018 with the worst record. The Panthers were at least mediocre before that. And so, uh there’s some fans out there that are campaigning, make Carolina mediocre again because they’re just not even that anymore. Panthers head coaches are or full time head coaches I should say are now one and six overall in their very first debut game. So the the lone winner there was, was John Fox. One thing that did stand out to me if we want to end this with some kind of positive is Canalis who has admitted, he is an incredibly optimistic guy said adversity, what shapes you. Uh and he knows for a fact that this whole situation with the Panthers, it was always gonna take time no matter what the wins or losses was. It just, it’s, it’s a tough look when there’s optimism. Hey, maybe let’s see what happens. It’s a new season and then you fall on your face curly, uh agreed with you uh there uh but you know, hey, we didn’t expect anything crazy again. I said at the top of this, I expected 6 to 8 wins for the Panthers this year. So not a very good team, but I at least expected them to be competitive and that’s not what they were against the Saints to open up the season. Next opportunity for the Panthers is next Sunday, the home opener against the Los Angeles Chargers at 1 p.m. That’s WRL sports anchor, Chris Lee Chris. Thank you so much.