MNF Thoughts
Well, I just watched the Panthers get manhandled by Green Bay, and I can't say that I'm too happy. When your team gets outmuscled, outpushed, out-thought and outplayed, it kind of puts you in a bad mood. Add to the fact that Michaels and Madden were in a typical game-long (plus a halftime special!) Favre Love fest, and it doesn't help things. As my esteemed colleague Tim said to the announcers, "Get off your knees already!".

But, I have a couple of reasons to feel more positive about the game then I should be. In my view, Carolina was generally in control of the game until the back-to-back turnovers. Once that happened, they started to push a little bit too much on offense and got tired on defense. These turnovers were quite avoidable, by the way. I mean a bobbled pass into the hands of a defender, that can take the fight out of any team. Delhomme overall looked generally solid, you can't fault him too much for what happened today. Muhammad and Proehl looked sharp when they could, and Smith was doing alright until his injury which hopefully is not serious.

Also, New England got blown out 31-0 at Buffalo to start the season last year, so it's not the end of the world. The question is, where does the team got from here? There's a lot of challenges, but this is where we see if the team can separate itself from the mediocre Panthers squads of the past.