‘Pathetic’ and ‘inexcusable:’ The Panthers’ entire season has been a false start

If you’re looking for a symbol of the Carolina Panthers’ first three games, you will do no better than “The Flinch.”

Fans will flinch when they see Carolina’s 0-3 record — the first time since 2010 the Panthers have started so poorly. Carolina coaches will flinch when they watch the game film of Carolina’s 37-27 road loss to Seattle Sunday.

And the Panthers’ offensive line? It flinched, over and over, on Sunday in a game marred by the Panthers getting called for false starts eight different times.

The Panthers’ entire season is off to a false start, in fact. And this time an otherwise flinchy, faulty, forgettable game will be remembered mostly for the yellow laundry.

Yes, the crowd noise in Seattle is legendary. Rightfully so. But this was still remarkable in its awfulness. The Panthers’ eight false starts as a team were the most by any team since the 2011 Chicago Bears had nine in Detroit, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

Panthers coach Frank Reich was as hot as I’ve ever seen him afterward about all those pre-snap penalties.

“The number of penalties was totally inexcusable,” Reich said. “Pathetic.”

Left offensive tackle Ickey Ekwonu, the Charlotte and N.C. State product who the Panthers have invested so much money and draft capital in, had four of those false starts by himself.

Said Ekwonu: “It was 100% on me. ... Jumping offsides four or five times is ridiculous. Four or five times in a season? Maybe. Four or five times in a game? That’s ridiculous, and something I’ve got to own and just get better at.”

Seattle coach Pete Carroll was giddy about the Seahawks fans — who call themselves the 12th man, or the 12s — and their impact on the game.

“One of the most obvious things that happened today was feeling the 12s,” Carroll said. “God, what a great impact they had on this game. These guys had eight false starts in this game. And that’s not us. We had nothing to do with that. They can’t get coordinated because of the noise. What a great factor.”

To blame Carolina’s offensive line only for this loss, though, is short-sighted. After scoring only 27 points combined in their first two games, the Panthers’ offense heated up with exactly that number of points in a single game Sunday.

Backup quarterback Andy Dalton had 361 passing yards in a career-high 58 attempts, as the Panthers finally started making the big plays they lacked the first two games when rookie QB Bryce Young (who missed this game due to an ankle injury) ran the show. The point total could have been more, if not for that octet of false starts and a quintet of drops.

Still, Carolina had a turnover-free day on offense, no small feat given the rainy afternoon in Seattle. But this time the Carolina defense eventually wore down, allowing Seattle 25 second-half points and 425 total yards for the day.

The Panthers’ defense lost three starters in the game, with cornerback CJ Henderson (ankle), linebacker Frankie Luvu (hip) and safety Xavier Woods (hamstring) all going out mid-game. That left a unit that had already lost two of its better players to injury in the first two games — linebacker Shaq Thompson and cornerback Jaycee Horn — even thinner.

The Carolina defense did hang in there in the first half. Carolina led 13-12 at halftime. But then, as things have been wont to do all season, it disintegrated.

The Panthers are 0-3 for the first time since 2010, when they went 2-14 with Jimmy Clausen as their primary quarterback. This 2023 team isn’t as bad as that one was, but it’s going to have to prove it.

Next up comes a home game with Minnesota, also 0-3 and in a similarly frantic state. Adam Thielen, the former Viking who was a bright spot with 145 yards receiving for Carolina, said that contest was going to “feel like a playoff game” because both teams will be so desperate for a win.

As for Reich, he remains hopeful. But you can tell this 0-3 start is wearing on Carolina’s new coach, too. He’s got bad karma in general about 0-3 starts as a Panther — when he did that as a starting quarterback in 1995, Dom Capers benched him for good.

Reich isn’t going to be benched here, but he’s got to make this team start clicking and he knows it. As even-tempered as they come, Reich used the word “pathetic” on two separate occasions in his news conference. Unusual, for him.

“I know we can be a good football team if we don’t beat ourselves,” Reich said after Sunday’s loss. “That being said, what we did, the number of penalties we had on offense was pathetic. That starts with me as an offensive coach. That starts with our offensive coaches, getting our players ready, And that starts with our players. That’s unacceptable. It’s like we’d never played in the noise before.”

Reich said the team practiced with so much crowd noise this past week, preparing for the decibel level in Seattle, that Dalton actually grew hoarse one day from shouting out the play calls.

“I mean, Wednesday was so loud out there you couldn’t even think,” Reich said.

Nevertheless, the preparation didn’t work. The Panthers’ offensive linemen were trying to go on a “silent count,” common in loud road games. But Dalton was sometimes trying to change the plays at the line, and communicating that to everyone proved difficult. Ekwonu once false-started on back-to-back plays and at one time grabbed his helmet in frustration. The other tackle, Taylor Moton, also was called for at least two false starts.

Reich said of Ekwonu: “Ickey has to look at himself and we have to look at, ‘What can we do to help him in those situations?’ … We have to be able to change plays on the road.”

Dalton’s numbers were padded somewhat in the second half, as Carolina — which actually led 13-12 at halftime — was trailing for the game’s final 25 minutes and trying to catch up. And the run game — which the Panthers had harbored high hopes for in the preseason — was ineffective, with only 44 yards rushing.

“You don’t come into Seattle and throw 58 times and win very many games,” Reich said. “So that was not the formula that we wanted.”

The Panthers have not found that formula yet. For now, the first three games of the season haven’t done much of anything.

Except make everyone flinch.