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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Actions speak louder than words, and interim Carolina Panthers coach Steve Wilks said plenty with the way he handled the end of the first half against the Broncos on Sunday.
He said he wasn’t scared of the Broncos, and why should he be, even with a 3-8 football team on his sideline?
He said he wasn’t scared of Russell Wilson, and why should he be? At that point, 27-plus minutes into the game, Denver had minus-1 net passing yards.
He said he wanted to get the ball back in Sam Darnold’s hands to see if he could put a nail in a listless team from the Rocky Mountains before intermission. Sam. Darnold. Making his first start of the season because, to this point, Baker Mayfield and P.J. Walker had been better options.
He said he figured his bad football team was just flat-out better than Nathaniel Hackett’s Broncos and, even though that decision didn’t generate points at the end of the half, Wilks was spot on.
The Broncos wilted in a 23-10 loss to Carolina, just like they had in their previous seven true road games dating back to Nov. 7, 2021. They failed to capitalize on scoring chances, just like they had when Hackett was calling the plays instead of quarterbacks coach Klint Kubiak. And they committed special teams gaffes and too many penalties, just like they have regardless of how much accountability gets talked about in news conferences.
“It’s about accountability and everybody’s got to see what they can do to get better,” Hackett said again Sunday. “It goes for all three phases — all three phases have to be better. That starts with me. I have to be better. Coaches have to be better, players have to be better. We just continually talk about growing, understanding where we’re going to go and what we can do.”
Denver is trudging back to the Mountain time zone losers of seven of their past eight, the latest of which felt like a breaking point even though it was just more of the same.
Actions speak louder than words, and the Broncos appear to be toast in 2022.
“There’s so many moments and we have to capitalize on those moments,” Wilson said. “It’s not just one particular moment. It’s the whole game. The whole game’s got to matter. Every play has to matter. Every moment we’ve got to be in tune. There’s going to be tough times, there’s ebbs and flows like any other game in sports. There’s ebbs and flows throughout the game and we’ve got to learn how to overcome those ebbs and flows and overcome those tough times when something doesn’t work out, how do you recapture it? That’s what we’re searching for.”
The game featured words, too, on the Broncos’ sideline. Defensive lineman Mike Purcell picked up an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a Carolina field goal that extended the Panthers’ advantage to 20-3 and then barked at Wilson on his way off the field.
“Mike and I are on the same page,” Wilson insisted afterward. “He came off after they kicked the field goal and he was (ticked) off and he said, ‘We’ve got to (expletive) go.’ I agree.”
Wide receiver Courtland Sutton paced up and down the sideline early in the game, beside himself after a second unnecessary roughness penalty in as many weeks and another lifeless performance from the unit he co-captains. He vented to Hackett on the sideline, walking far away from the offensive huddle before rejoining his teammates after a couple of minutes.
“If some guys are frustrated, sometimes you’ve got to show it and you’ve got to make other people aware,” inside linebacker Josey Jewell said. “If you’re losing like this, shoot, you shouldn’t be comfortable. We need to get uncomfortable so we make those wins and it’s comfortable to keep on winning.
“Nobody wants to be comfortable with losing every single day.”
Wilkes added the insult to Denver’s injury and ineptitude late in the first half. Hackett did not call a timeout with 2 minutes, 40 seconds remaining, his team trailing 7-3 and the Panthers facing a third-and-14 deep in their own territory. Instead, Carolina punted with 1:55 to go. Then, when Wilson handed the ball to Latavius Murray on the first play of the drive, Wilkes immediately called timeout. He had his eyes on getting the ball back again, which the Panthers did after Denver’s attempt at a late-half score resulted in just five plays, 15 yards and the team’s fourth punt of the day. The Panthers didn’t score, but the message was loud and clear: You can’t score against us and we know it.
Week in and week out, teams take that approach against these Broncos, whose scoring average fell to 14.3 points per game. It’s not supposed to be this hard in the NFL to put points on the board, is it?
“You asked if it’s difficult,” running back Latavius Murray said in the locker room after rushing for 92 yards. “It is for us right now.”
In three games since Hackett thought the team had found something offensively going into its bye week, the Broncos have scored three total offensive touchdowns.
They’ve scored one or zero touchdowns in nine of their 11 games this season. They’re getting a career-worst performance from Wilson and league-worst output from the coach hired largely for his offensive creativity and capability.
“It’s unacceptable, bottom line,” Wilson said. “This organization, this tradition here, everything else, we’ve got to honor it. We’ve got to honor it by winning, honor it by our work ethic.”
Actions speak louder than words, and the coming days and weeks will say plenty about how the Broncos’ management and new ownership group plans to get there from here.
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