Robert Hunt points to where it all went wrong for Panthers vs. Cowboys

At 1:20 P.M. EST everything was hunky dory for the Carolina Panthers. The sun was shining over Bank of America Stadium, they had ‘forced’ a Cooper Rush fumble, and Bryce Young was commanding the offense on a drive that chewed up eight minutes of the clock that was destined to end with points and a Panthers’ lead.

Not so fast my friend.

A red zone fumble by Bryce Young after a dizzying spin move that left All-World pass rusher Micah Parsons in the blender abruptly ended Carolina’s opening salvo and sent them into a tailspin that finished with an embarrassing loss at the hand of the Cowboys.

Robert Hunt, Carolina’s Pro Bowl-hopeful offensive guard, pointed to that moment as the turning point in this afternoon’s contest.

“We were very confident in what we could do. That first drive is what I thought we should have done all game. But once you get out of that rhythm, it’s hard to…once you get behind, you know, obviously they can tee off. They got #11 (Parsons) over there who is a really good pass rusher and everybody knows what we’re doing. And they’re able to do that (tee off). They made the best of their opportunities and they got after us.”

Got after them they did.

Parson’s and his rag tag band of pass rushing gremlins brought down Bryce Young a whopping six times. Shockingly, a career high number for the second-year quarterback that spent his first 18 starts looking wildly overmatched as he fell into the cluthces of opposing defenders an inordinate number of times from week-to-week.

Next up for Carolina is a home date with Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals. Mercifully, The Cardinals’ pass rush doesn’t bear nearly as many teeth as Dallas’ fearsome fronts, but fear not: they’ll find a way to get their hands on Bryce Young. Everybody does. Next weeks game has quickly become an inflection point in the ascendant arc of Young’s career, and ideally things won’t turn in the wrong direction as quickly as they did today.

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