The Panthers need to squeeze everything out of win No. 1

TROY HULL | THE CHARLOTTE POST

Carolina quarterback Bryce Young runs for a first down in the Panthers’ 30-0 win against the Atlanta Falcons Sept. 21, 2025 at Bank of America Stadium. Young completed 16-of-24 passes for 121 yards in addition to running for a touchdown.

It’s about time the sun shined on the Panthers.

Whether they were just that good in a 30-0 dog walking of the Atlanta Falcons or the Falcons were just that pathetic, it’s secondary. Carolina needed respite from a summer of misery – winless preseason, followed by a pair of uninspired losses to open the regular season – so any port in a storm, right?

The glass-half-full crowd will point to Carolina’s dominance in every phase, to notch its first win of the season, starting with Bryce Young managing an efficient offense. The most impressive unit, though, was the defense, which shut out Atlanta and even had a hand in putting points on the Panthers’ side of the scoreboard with Chau Smith-Wade’s interception return for a touchdown. 

Michael Penix, whom the Falcons swear is going to be a really good quarterback someday, wasn’t. Carolina thoroughly confused and flummoxed him into a nightmare and turned in three takeaways.

“When you have a chance to score in every phase, you give yourself a great chance to win,” Panthers coach Dave Canales said. “I thought the defense played an unbelievable game. The run game plan, the execution, the communication, all that stuff that we've been really just harping on is where we have to continue to grow.”

Smith-Wade isn’t old enough to remember the good old days when Carolina was relevant as an NFL franchise – there are fewer of us in number than ever – but he knows there is something to be said for aspiration. Why not start with one game of total butt-whuppery?

“It felt good,”  he said. “Panthers Nation, we knew this was something they were looking forward to. For me to be able to prance into the end zone and look at the fans, I started saying, ‘Thank y’all, thank y’all.’ I just wanted to give them a nostalgic feeling, really.” 

Canales, a glass-half-full adherent if ever there was one, knows there’s much to be done with this flawed group. But, hey, wins don’t show up that often around here, so he’s all in on feeling good and going forward.

“There was still a couple of things that we need to clean up from a defensive standpoint. But to take advantage of some of those opportunities with Chau Smith-Wade with the touchdown, Mike [Jackson] with the interception, and then that punch-out at the end, it's just a form of habits. It’s what we’re trying to get done in practice is the more attempts we get on the ball, eventually you can get one out there.

“How about (kicker) Ryan Fitzgerald? Not just the field goals and PATs, but I really thought he impacted the game with how he kicked the ball on kickoff, gave us some amazing field position, some different kicks that gave them some issues getting the ball on the ground in the landing zone. Then offensively, I felt like we had some good rhythm going, and if you look at the stats, our penalties really put us in some unfavorable third downs, and we weren't able to convert some of the longer ones.”

Young, Carolina’s own quarterback enigma, understands the power of positivity. Now there’s the hard part – finding a way to replicate last week’s success for the long term, starting Sunday at New England.

“Blessed,” said Young, who completed 16-of-24 passes for 121 yards and ran for a score. “Feel great. I’m super proud of this team. Just complete team performance, all three phases. Defense, special teams, they played phenomenal all night, so this is great. … It's one week, so for now it's great, and then we'll come back …we'll watch the film, see what we can replicate, see what we can learn from it and turn the page, but it feels good right now.”

Any port in a storm.

Post editor-in-chief Herbert L. White has covered the Panthers since their founding in 1993.

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