The Panthers followed up one of their best performances in recent years with one of their worst – falling to the New England Patriots, 42-13, just a week after a blowout win against the Falcons.
After the game head coach Dave Canales took responsibility for his team’s play.
“When it’s a full team effort like this, I have to put that on myself,” Canales said. “I have to look at how I’m preparing the team. How we’re going about our work. I have to look at that and compete to find an edge to get these guys to work together and to focus, so we can get the execution that we’re seeing happen in our processes.”
There were times that it looked like the Panthers, despite being down big, had given up. But Canales said their effort was never a question for him.
“I can honestly say that the effort and energy from out guys was there. It keeps coming back to the execution. I have to look at that myself.”
After a loss like this there’s lot of blame to go around, but the buck stops with the head coach and if the Panthers are going to turn things around it will start with Canales and his staff.