Mike Shula is butt-tight. There's no sugar coating it. Cam kind of tries to spread the blame for letting the Seasquawks almost come back after being up 31-0. What he's saying is Shula just about caused an incredibly embarrassing loss. dot I am a gay twerker that has no balls!!!! I also have no idea how to use the quote function to post stories, so I annoy the piss out of others. I like male genatalia in and around my mouth....you know it.
In Sunday's NFL Divisional Round playoff game against the two-time defending NFC champion Seattle Seahawks, the Carolina Panthers had a 14-0 lead by the time the ball had been snapped six times and rolled to a 31-0 halftime advantage.
The Panthers ended up with a 31-24 victory to advance to play the Arizona Cardinals for the NFC championship.
"It was just a tale of execution," Carolina quarterback Cam Newton said at his postgame press conference. "We needed a little bit more of that in the second half. There was a lot of guys playing with their butts tight, coaches with their butts tight. Hell, at one point, the fans and myself was butt tight, too. But yet you've just got to find ways to get your groove back going."
Carolina offensive coordinator Mike Shula didn't agree with the former Auburn star's assessment. The former Alabama coach said the Seahawks and the situation had a lot to do with how the second half played out.
"It's a fine line in keeping it wide open and also trying to call plays that are really good that also will keep the clock moving," Shula told ESPN. "(The Seahawks are) really good. I don't think there is anybody here that doesn't think they are really good on defense."
Seattle led the NFL in scoring defense for the fourth straight season in 2015.
Newton said he understood the wisdom of eating up the clock with such a big lead.
"A lot of plays were eliminated due to our philosophy, at times, was just to play keepaway," Newton said. "We don't have to take shots down field nor do we have to come up with this guru of a play call when, at the end of the day, the best thing we've got going is time."
Once Seattle got off the canvas, though, the Panthers couldn't put the Seahawks back down after knocking them silly in the first half.
"I think the playoffs bring out, more than any other time, the impact of the big mo, and that's momentum," Newton said.
With their playoff victory, the Panthers have a 16-1 record in the 2015 regular- and postseason, even though they've given up at least 20 points after halftime in five of their games.
The second half against the Seahawks was the first half this season in which the Panthers failed to score. In their 17 games, Carolina has outscored its opponents 297-121 in the first half. That margin shrinks to a 234-211 advantage after halftime.
"We've just got to find ways to complete a full game of football," Newton said. "We've been known to kind of let the foot off the throttle. For us, we've just got to get that killer instinct."
Carolina coach Ron Rivera said it's important to keep the big picture in mind when looking at the Panthers' second-half concerns.
"I'll be honest: I get it; I understand," Rivera told reporters after the Seattle game. "But, shoot, we won those football games and look who we played against. If this was someone that was 2-14 that did this to us, then I'd be really concerned. But it wasn't. Am I concerned? Yeah. But are these things correctable and fixable? Most certainly. Let's stay focused on what we did. We did some really good things. We made some things happen. And we won the football game."