It was right there for the taking, home field advantage in the cozy confines of Bank of America Stadium. The Panthers could see it, they reached for it, they had it and then ...it slipped away. We can only surmise how the Panthers felt afterward from their actions as not many were ready to talk about it:

In the miserable Panthers' locker room, it was like William's night had never happened. Stewart did not speak with reporters and by the time the locker room was open to the news media, nothing but a pair of wire hangers hung in William's empty locker. Williams made his way to the team bus just as quickly as he made his way to the end zone - just as quickly as the game slipped away from Carolina - without staying to speak with reporters.

"He had four touchdowns tonight," Delhomme said, "but I promise you he would have traded all four for a win."

We can barrage the run defense, lament the non-use of Steve Smith in the 2^nd half or extol the senseless penalties. In the end if the wind had dropped for a few precious moments we would be having a very different slant on what happened in the Meadowlands Sunday night. Instead the Panthers must pick up the pieces and game plan for a very tough road game to the Super Dome this Sunday.

I'll post on that later but first here's some of my notes from the game after the jump...

• The run defense was good at the outset as Jon Beason made a nice hit on the FB to prevent a short 3^rd down conversion.
• Musin Muhammad made a very nice catch for a first down. Moose had a good game both catching and blocking.
• On RB Derrick Wards first long run both SS Chris Harris and MLB Jon Beason attacked their gaps quickly, but both got sealed off as Ward hit a different gap
• Throughout the game when the Panthers rushed just 4 linemen there was little pressure put on QB Eli Manning, the sacks by DE's Tyler Brayton and Julius Peppers withstanding
• Peppers deflected a pass at the line that went right to LB Jon Beason who wasn't expecting it and dropped it. If there was a stat for it I'm sure the Panthers would be in the Top 3 for dropped INT's
• As I've mentioned before this was Brayton' best game as a Panther as he got pressure on a number of occasions, made some nice tackles in the run game and got a nice sack on Manning.
• I thought the ref's weren't calling crap until the end of the game. There could have been several pass interference calls on both sides throughout the game
• We seemed to be rotating in a lot of back-ups in the secondary as I saw Nate Salley and Dante Wesley on the field several times. I'm not sure the reason for that because has not been the Panthers MO in past games.
• SS Chris Harris had a big game as well and was bringing the wood on some of his hits
• The announcers pointed out that though Geoff Hangartner started at RG Jeremy Bridges was rotating in quite often. I'm not sure of why that was done other than maybe there was an unusually high number of substitutions due to the cold weather
• WR Dwayne Jarrett has his standard 1 catch for a 1st down. I'd like to see the Panthers use the big guy more in that situation.
• On RB DeAngelo Williams 4^th TD run he completely abused Giants SS James Butler on an inside cut. It was exactly the type of move that separates Williams from other RB's including Jonathan Stewart, who would have simply tried to run over Butler.
• The check-down passes to Stewart were working well and maybe we will see more of them this Sunday. On the other hand, Jake prefers to go downfield to Smith rather than dump it off. I think the Panthers abandoned the deep pass because of the wind and thereby nullified their biggest weapon in the passing game. That won't be a problem in the Super Dome.
• On the Giants game tying drive a pass was deflected up and was going to come down right in the hands of CB Chris Gamble, that is until FS Charles Godfrey tipped it away. Another example of this key victory slipping away.
• The pass interference call on CB Ken Lucas was crap. Check the picture below which sure looks like good coverage to me. Sure, its a still photo, but its perfect coverage. Not that the play was a game changer but still...1st and goal at the 1 was tough for this call.

Looks like great coverage by CB ken Lucas to me!