Evidence, proof, whatever. It was a damn designed play.

haha

chip got flagged

 

I wouldn't call him a liar, but I'm convinced the real John Fox has been abducted by aliens. We picked the wrong time to try some tricksy shit, and I hate to say we got what we deserved.

 

I think he should be earth....or maybe wind..

 

I still say that Fox didn't approve the play. It's not like he knows about Henning's calls or Trgovac's calls, and I just can't even imagine a scenario in which he'd approve that when we're up by 7 in the 4th quarter. If it was a call, and I guess I have to assume it is even though there was no blocking to suggest as much, then it had to be Crossman's. I ended up doing a page in my review about it that gives some good insight via screenshots.

 

Pillage & plunder
Miscues prove costly for Panthers
By Darin Gantt · The Herald - Updated 09/18/06 - 12:25 AM

Pillage & plunder

Gamble takes brunt of blame for loss
Peppers has monster game despite outcome
Panthers playing good game of lineman shuffle
Keyshawn shares wisdom to young NFL showboaters
Fordham getting his chance to start again
Panthers have proven they're better on the road
Williams not worried about lack of carries
With Morgan out, Seward steps in to fill void at LB
Too early to panic, Keyshawn says

MINNEAPOLIS -- Everything went well enough for the Carolina Panthers to win Sunday, with the lone exception of something that never should have mattered -- because it never should have been called.
The Panthers had Minnesota reeling and seemed about to reverse last week's devastating loss to Atlanta, but a bizarre call for a trick play on a fourth-quarter punt return gave life to a beaten team, and the Vikings quickly turned it on the Panthers to take a 16-13 overtime win at the Metrodome.

"This one's tough," veteran safety Mike Minter said from his station near the back of a church-quiet locker room. "There's no other word for it."

In the team's history of bad decisions at bad times -- and they've had some doozies -- this one will stand near the top of the list for decades to come, as ill-timed and poorly executed as it was.

The Panthers held a 13-6 lead with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and appeared to have landed enough body blows to keep the Vikings from coming back. After forcing a three-and-out, Chris Gamble drifted back to return a punt, and that's when the mayhem began.

Gamble made an awkward attempt to throw the ball to rookie corner Richard Marshall, who was never able to cleanly catch the short-hopped attempt because Vikings safety Will Hunter was draped all over him from the moment the ball was thrown.

The Vikings capitalized on the blunder, scoring a tying touchdown on a fake field goal, and then did just enough at just the right times in overtime to steal a win.

Panthers coach John Fox immediately and decisively jumped on the grenade for special teams coach Danny Crossman and Gamble, apologizing to his team for letting the bad idea escape.

"Really, nothing happens on this team without me okaying it and I okayed it," Fox said, since there were no petards handy to hoist himself upon. "It obviously didn't work out."

The Panthers had worked on the play in question throughout the week after noticing the Vikings tended to flood their punt coverage to one side, often leaving the backside of the play open for cutbacks. It had been repped a number of times each day in practice, and Gamble said he was confident they could make something happen.

The way the play was designed, Gamble went onto the field with the choice to keep the ball or fling it, but he seemed to freeze up in the moment and lose sight of his options.

"I did," he said with a nod when asked if he felt comfortable with the play call. "But at the time, just going live, I had to just hold the ball instead of just throwing it. That was just a dumb mistake on my part."

The bigger question became why the play was even called. Certainly, a big play would have likely ended the Vikings' hopes, but they might have been gone anyway. The Panthers had withstood a sluggish start and had put enough points on the board (DeAngelo Williams' second-quarter touchdown gave them a 13-6 lead just before the half), and their defense had begun to tighten the clamps on Vikings quarterback Brad Johnson.

"In hindsight, it's a trick play that I wish I could have back," Fox said. "Unfortunately, that's not the way it works."

Compounding the smacking-themselves-in-the-forehead quality of the late-game follies, the Vikings immediately turned the tables on the Panthers with one of their own, but theirs worked.

After the Panthers' defense forced another three-and-out after the Vikings took over at the Panthers 21-yard line, Minnesota lined up for a field goal. It wasn't a lock, as Julius Peppers had already blocked one, but the Vikings made their gamble pay.

Kicker Ryan Longwell took a flip from holder Chris Kluwe and tossed a lob to wide-open tight end Richard Owens, who barely made it to the end zone past a lunging Peppers.

Vikings coach Brad Childress said a bit of institutional espionage led them to believe they could make a play there. He credited special teams assistant Paul Ferraro -- who worked for the Panthers last year as Crossman's apprentice -- with sniffing out a weakness. Basically, Minter sold himself out pushing from the outside, leaving him far away from Owens.

"We thought we had the look from earlier in the game and (Ferraro) has a little, I'm not going to say insider information, but at least he coached in that system down there in Carolina, and felt like there was, I guess the word would be a flaw, in the rush," Childress explained. "They're all out, they sell out from that side, and the minute we knew the linebacker was away and they were going to push it, we felt like we had the opportunity.

"I didn't feel like three points at that time was what we needed. I thought we needed a little something different from that."

The Panthers still had overtime, but after Johnson squeezed out a third-down pass for 30 yards to former South Carolina star Troy Williamson, and Chester Taylor followed two plays later with a 33-yard burst, it was just a matter of waiting for the game-winning field goal, which Longwell provided with 7:28 left.

After consecutive spirit-crushing losses, the Panthers have to take to the road again in an effort to save the first quarter of the season. They'll visit Tampa Bay next week and the Buccaneers are listing as well. They lost 14-3 to Atlanta Sunday and have been outscored 41-3 in two games.

"I tell you what, that's either going to make us or break us," Minter said. "It's definitely going to test the character of this football team. We definitely didn't expect to be 0-2 at this point, but it is 0-2 and we've got to be able to step up and right it.

"We're capable of doing it. We've just got to do it."

 

:apfbbt:

 

maybe they had planned to put this play in the playbook on one of the last two day's of training camp.

 

It was called, it was worked on. Fox okayed it, but he doesn't say that he called it. Which is about what we expected and most of us knew.

Puts that to rest. It doesn't excuse Gamble from making the bad read or bad throw, but it was intended to happen.

 

Does this change the fact that Delhomme sucks? It doesnt to me. He may not suck all the time, but he has been shit the first two games.

And we were only up by 7. Im not trying to argue the merits of the call, because it was stupid, but I can see why they think they need to make a call like that to extend the lead. Jake sure as hell wasnt going to do it. Everyone is questioning this one play, what about the 40 or so Jake was in for???

 

Since we lost at Minnesota and the last couple of times we lost there we went on long losing streaks, this will be the beginning of a long winning streak starting with the Tampa game next week.

Tampa has scored 3 points in its first 2 games. If we can't beat them, we should call it a season. We will win!