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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — There’s this phenomenon in football that has to be felt in person to be understood.
It is overwhelming, permeating, shattering noise — and then the sudden absence of it. When the oxygen is sucked from a stadium in just a moment. Bright and kinetic energy pulled helplessly into a black hole.
It was Matthew Stafford’s touchdown pass to Colby Parkinson at Carolina, into the front corner of the end zone and the maw of the electric home crowd, to take the lead with 38 seconds to play. The Rams scrapped back and forth with the feisty Panthers, who in turn were spurred onward by stellar play by third-year quarterback Bryce Young and a playoff crowd that had starved for seven years between postseason appearances. For the Rams, it was another Stafford late-game comeback and another trip to the divisional round after the 34-31 win.
“That was so much fun,” Parkinson said. “I love when it’s just so loud when we’re on offense, and then deathly silent … .”
As Stafford and a Rams offense that had been mercurial through so much of the game prepared to take the field with 2:34 to play, teammates said he gathered the offense to him and told them, “Let’s go snatch these guys’ hearts.”
Too much time on the clock for the first-team All-Pro quarterback and MVP candidate, even though he played poorly for the game’s first three quarters. Too much time for the man whom fans and teammates have come to know as “the soul-stealer” after his throw, spike and primordial scream to set up the game-winning field goal in the divisional round during the run to Super Bowl LVI.
“When you look up at the clock and you see that it’s 2:34 left, three timeouts left, and you’re like, ‘Dude, it’s Matt Stafford. They left way too much time up there,’” defensive lineman Kobie Turner said. “It’s huge to be able to have him as a weapon, to be able to have him do his thing.”
Yet it will be remembered, and especially by head coach Sean McVay, that the Rams almost lost this game. Stafford opened 8-for-8 passing but continued with just two completions on his next 13 attempts, including opening the first possession of the third quarter with a three-and-out: all passes, all incomplete to receiver Davante Adams.
Truly, the Rams’ offensive strategy at times was curious. They kept attacking the Panthers’ perimeter cornerbacks, Mike Jackson and Jaycee Horn; the two are underrated leaguewide but explode off the tape week over week as ball hawks not to be tested. According to Next Gen Stats, Stafford had 12 pass attempts outside the numbers and was intercepted once while completing only two other passes; one for 10 yards, and the other Parkinson’s touchdown.
“Their players made it difficult. They’ve got some good players on the perimeter that ended up being pretty active,” McVay said. “They brought a little bit more pressure. Kinda had been an uptick in their identity over the last couple of weeks. … It was a give and take based on some of the coverages. Jackson and Horn are as good of a tandem as there is.”
The Panthers, though, rank No. 30 in the NFL in DVOA when defending tight ends and are especially vulnerable in the middle and deeper-middle areas of the field — yet McVay deployed the majority of offensive snaps out of 11 personnel until adjusting about midway through the third quarter. The Rams have the highest success rate in the NFL when using 13 personnel, a grouping that directly attacks the linebackers and safeties of a defense; were a healthy Adams and Puka Nacua too tempting a combo to swap one of them with a third tight end?
To McVay’s credit, the offense did adjust. In-breakers by receivers that targeted the middle of the field picked up big gains as Stafford completed 12 of 15 pass attempts in the fourth quarter; Stafford went on to complete 22 of 30 pass attempts and two touchdowns inside the numbers. All three of his passing touchdowns exploited either a safety or linebacker, per Next Gen Stats.
“There were some times where they were playing a little bit of shell and we were trying to attack the inside part of the field. Had some successful outcomes,” McVay continued. “And then there were some times where I’ll look at myself and say, ‘Man, I wish I did a better job of putting our guys in a more advantageous spot.’ I’ll be kicking myself for that and hopefully I don’t make those same mistakes next week.”
Self-inflicted mistakes hamstrung the Rams throughout the game. Nacua dropped two passes, including a deep ball that would have been a walk-in touchdown had it not bounced through his hands. (Nacua also made a possibly game-saving play by breaking up a Stafford pass that would’ve been intercepted by former Ram Nick Scott in the end zone.) And while the Rams capitalized with touchdowns on two short fields in their first three possessions courtesy of a Panthers turnover on downs and an interception, they also squandered another short field later in the second quarter after linebacker Troy Reeder recovered a muffed punt. The Panthers blocked a punt deep in the fourth quarter, too.
Bryce Young threw for 264 yards and a TD and also celebrated this 16-yard touchdown run late in the first half. (Jim Dedmon / Imagn Images)
And when L.A. stumbled, Young delivered. He was truly fantastic throughout the game. He finished 21-of-40 with a rushing touchdown (on third-and-10, to boot), a passing touchdown and an interception — but those statistics don’t tell his story. He played point guard when he needed to; Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard had a bad miss on a screen pass early on but Young got the short game working more effectively as the game continued. He picked up key gains with his legs and extended plays, especially finding connections with receiver Jalen Coker (who finished with 9 catches on 12 targets for 134 yards and a touchdown). After Stafford’s interception in the third quarter, Young drove the offense 62 yards in four plays for a touchdown.
“Just gritty, tough,” said Panthers head coach Dave Canales of his quarterback. “… To give us a chance to take the ball all the way down after the punt, a couple of plays and then punch it in with the beautiful throw to Coker at the end to take the lead was unbelievable. I just can’t say enough about the way Bryce stepped up and played in this game.”
After the blocked punt, Young and the Panthers took over at the Rams’ 30-yard line and scored a go-ahead touchdown with 2:39 to play.
Against teams without Stafford at quarterback, that might have been enough.
The city was ready to see it. A sellout crowd packed Bank of America Stadium despite the threat of torrential rain that never came. Fans who have gotten used to so much bad these last few years saw the bona fide potential of a plucky team that, though it backed into the postseason, met the moment and then some. Legends of iconic former Panthers teams dotted the building; Cam Newton banged the pregame drum and lit up the crowd, Steve Smith Sr. strolled the sidelines while Luke Kuechly, Thomas Davis Sr., Jake Delhomme and Greg Olsen were all on set or up in the booths for their respective radio and television broadcasts. For a moment, as Young swaggered into the end zone to celebrate after throwing Coker that touchdown pass and the Panthers were up 31-27 on a team favored to beat them by more than 10 points, the crowd whipped into a roaring frenzy and it felt like 2015 again.
The organization should be proud. So too should the city. There is much work still to be done. But Saturday was a glimpse of the sheer possibility of a better future in Carolina.
Meanwhile, it was a sobering reminder for the Rams that a Super Bowl fate that they hope is inevitable — a fate they were meticulously built for — can be snatched away in just a few moments if they don’t clean up their play.
Both can be true. But only one team advances.
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