The Panthers played exactly the kind of game they had to play to beat the Saints tonight. It was a slow, prodding, defensive affair—the exact kind of game that Ron Rivera loves—but it wasn’t quite enough to get them over the edge as they fell to the Saints in a 12-9 loss that was way more insane than anyone thought it would be.
The defense played out of their minds for most of the evening, only allowing a few big plays here and there over the course of the game, but they made up for those errors by coming up with key momentum shifting plays of their own in an extremely strong effort against one of the NFL’s elite offenses.