ATLANTA _ I'm glad Ron Rivera didn't have to see this.
Atlanta blasted Carolina once again on Sunday, 40-20, and the whole day was a nasty mess.
Quarterback Kyle Allen had three turnovers. Atlanta gained 461 yards. And Panthers cornerback Donte Jackson ripped his own defensive coaching staff afterward for "two horrible calls" that he said led to touchdowns.
As for Rivera? He didn't watch any of it.
Fired Tuesday by Carolina owner David Tepper after 8 } years as the Panthers head coach, Rivera made a conscious decision to stay away from the TV on Sunday afternoon. The emotions were obviously still too raw.
Rivera and I had a texted back and forth a couple of times during the game. I know he still wishes the best for the Panthers _ he's made that very clear _ so I asked him if he was watching.
"No, there was no way I could have watched them today," Rivera texted me.
As for what he had been doing? "A very strange start to my day," Rivera wrote. "I slept to 7 am and when I woke my first thought was what times (are) the buses?"
Rivera, of course, didn't have to catch a bus to a stadium or anywhere else Sunday. Instead, he got outside and played a "Battle of the Sexes" round of golf with his wife, Stephanie, and some mutual friends.
"The girls whipped the boys," Rivera wrote. "Stephanie shot 72!"
In the meantime, the Falcons (4-9) were whipping the Panthers. The game was close for a half, but then the wheels fell off in the third quarter for Carolina (5-8).
On the play Jackson was angriest about, the Falcons were ahead 20-10 but facing a third-and-8 at their own 7 midway through the third quarter.
Then the Panthers' coaches _ with interim head coach Perry Fewell mostly in charge of the defensive calls on this day _ sent a risky blitz. Eight Panthers players charged after Ryan, who launched a deep ball from his own end zone just before he got hit.
Jackson was one-on-one covering Olamide Zaccheaus, a rookie who had never caught a single NFL pass but is quite fast.
"We sent everybody," Jackson said of the blitz. "To leave the corners out there on an island by (themselves)? ... . Zero coverage. No help. Backed up. With a quarterback like that? I don't care if you're Champ Bailey or any of those cornerbacks on the (NFL) 100 (best all-time players) list, that is a play that's hard to make for any guy."
The result was a 93-yard touchdown pass to Zaccheaus, who shed Jackson's tackle attempt around midfield and ran the rest of the way untouched. It was the longest TD pass of Ryan's career.
Jackson also was perturbed about the type of coverage the Panthers played on Ryan's first TD pass, a 15-yarder to a wide-open Calvin Ridley. Jackson and safety Eric Reid were the nearest defenders.
It was a "cover-2 zone trap," Jackson said, and something the Panthers hadn't worked on much. Overall, Jackson said, the two calls just weren't "smart football."
"It was two bad calls," the second-year cornerback said. "Two horrible calls. Two calls that we didn't call in those situations all week at practice."
I asked Fewell about the blitz play call in his press conference (this was about 15 minutes before Jackson spoke). Why call for an eight-man rush there?
"We needed a spark, I felt like," Fewell said. "We tried a blitz defensively where we felt like we could get home and make something happen. ... We were trying to create something. ... But it didn't work."
Calling out your coaches in the postgame locker room isn't ideal. But Jackson was correct in this way _ it was too big of a gamble for a team that hardly ever can stop Ryan in the best of circumstances. If you don't get the safety there, Ryan has three or four receivers who can beat one-on-one coverage with that much room.
The gamble I would rather Fewell have taken: Carolina was down 20-10 but had a fourth-and-5 at the Atlanta 44 just a few plays before.
Rather than go for it, Fewell punted. If you miss on that gamble, at least you're not giving up a touchdown if it backfires.
After the 93-yard TD made the score 27-10, the game was basically decided. Carolina isn't built to come back from three scores down against anybody in the NFL.
And the Panthers have three more games they still must play, before some of this mess starts getting cleaned up. My advice to you? Go find those golf clubs.
