Good morning Panther faithful. What can we say about yesterday's game? A disappointment? An embarrassment? An abomination? All of the above? The Panthers were, for lack of a better term, awful on Sunday, at least on one side of the ball. Now we sit 4-7 with playoff contention a distant memory of a hopeful era 3 weeks back, when the fan base thought anything was possible.

Now that we are eliminated for all intents and purposes (I know there's a 1% chance) we are now a team who needs to evaluate their future talent to prepare for the draft, rather than try to finish a mediocre 7-9, 8-8 or 6-10. It will be incumbent upon John Fox to see what is needed for the future of the franchise rather than winning the bare minimum to justify him keeping his job.

More to come, after the jump...

I'm sure every football fan has heard the old axiom ‘Football is a game of inches'. This overused phrase normally refers to the need to move the chains, focus on the minutia and dominate those few inches where a game is won or lost. As tired as this phrase has become it can be used perfectly to illustrate what happened in yesterday's game. A few inches to the left and that ball would have harmlessly hit the ground rather than bounce of Steve Smith's heel for a pick 6, a few inches to the right and Steve Smith is awarded his 4^th quarter touchdown. The ball bounces the Panthers' way in these two occasions and the score is 13-7 Panthers, it's as simple as that. The fault of the Panthers was letting the game hinge of two plays.

Normally I detest the term ‘They didn't beat us; we beat ourselves' as it exudes an air of confidence and arrogance while saying the winning team didn't deserve it. With full respect to the Jets who played well, we beat ourselves on Sunday. There was nothing memorable the Jets did on offense all day, they didn't need to do anything flashy, they didn't need anyone to step up; because the Panthers had enough players step down.

Jake Delhomme will be omitted from the regular breakdown, because yet again I'm going to talk about him now. Was Jake Delhomme the reason we lost Sunday's game vs. the Jets? Probably, but football is a team game and the rest of the offense will get theirs later in this article. Delhomme is experiencing a crisis of confidence in 2009. I don't care what he's saying in the media, or what his teammates are saying I don't believe he's the same player from his mannerisms' and body language. He's shown moments, and games that display that ‘same old Jake' mentality, but he isn't bouncing back the way we're used to. The old Jake would storm off the field yelling at himself after an INT, 2009 Jake walks off the field as if the inevitable has just occurred. I still don't think Jake Delhomme is ‘done' as people like to throw around, but he needs to sit; Jake needs to be on the bench for the sake of the Carolina Panthers, the future of the franchise and most importantly he needs to sit on the bench for himself, so he can step back and try and regain his mental composure.

No doubt the masses who were calling for Jake's head 5 weeks ago will be out in force this week, despite being curiously absent for the last month. They will barrage message boards, blogs and talk radio with their ‘I told you so' spiel, and writing their vitriolic messages of condemnation. To these people Delhomme's decent (certainly not stellar) play in the last month falls on blind eyes and deaf ears; they want to go into the unknown and try and play Matt Moore, if for no other reason than hope against hope we have the next Tom Brady waiting to get a shot. I've been pretty resolute on this topic, you don't play Matt Moore until the season is out of hand, well, it's out of hand so I think Fox has to play Moore. It goes beyond 2009, it becomes about evaluating what we have inside the organization before taking a shot on a QB in the 2010 draft. So, what's standing in the way of this franchise making the decisions it needs to in order to prepare for the future? John Fox.

It is now incumbent upon Fox to put the organization first and start Moore. This could be a sacrificial move on his part, because if the Panthers fail and we finish 4-12 then he'll most likely be cut from the team. The upside: if lightning strikes and Matt Moore is indeed ‘the man' we could potentially finish 8-8, Fox is a shoe-in to keep his job and we go into the 2010 draft looking at drafting a WR or DL in the second round. It's a gamble either way, but a necessary one. Now's not the time for Fox or the Panthers organization to play scared, it's time to lash out with some bold moves to try a last ditch effort at saving not only the season, but the near future of the Carolina Panthers.

Optimistic

Ron Meeks- Extremely Optimistic: Does anyone doubt Meeks at this point? I've been flying the Meeks flag for weeks now and I'm not going to stop any time soon. It's miraculous how hard this team is playing with backup DL and LBs. He's doing a phenomenal job.

Jon Beason- Extremely Optimistic: Its beast, you don't even need to watch games and you can pencil him in to this spot. He's money week in, week out.

Tyler Brayton- Extremely Optimistic: Brayton played very well on Sunday continually pestering Sanchez and getting 1.5 sacks. Nice work.

Chris Harris- Somewhat Optimistic: CSR contributor Harris makes the list easily. He covered the middle very well and created a timely fumble; Great game from Harris.

Everette Brown- Somewhat Optimistic: Brown continues to look like a 2^nd round pick that was worthy of the 1^st he was projected as. He needs more playing time, but he's looking like a very special player.

Julius Peppers- Somewhat Optimistic: Pepper s returned to form in vs. the Jets. Nice FF by Peppers.

Dwayne Jarrett- Somewhat Optimistic: He's ALIVE! There were signs of life from the WR and he showed that he could actually be catching one. It normally takes WRs a couple of years to find their form, so let's hope we're seeing it happen now.

Captain Munnerlyn- Somewhat Optimistic: As good at his PR was on Sunday he almost deserves to be left out for his horrible sideline dance caught on camera in the 3^rd quarter, I kid... nice play from the rookie.

Pessimistic

Offensive Line- Extremely pessimistic: As porous as a dime store paper towel the Panthers' O-line let everything through on Sunday. On the sheet the Jets only recorded 3 sacks, but it really should have been more like 7 or 8. Bernadeau missed at least 1/5^th of his blocks, Wharton was terrible at LT, Otah got no push and Kalil looked confused. The offensive line as a whole were pitiful on Sunday. By no means does Jake Delhomme get a pass, but the offensive line didn't help him.

Double Trouble- Somewhat Pessimistic: I wont be too hard on them because the offensive line were that bad but 24 carries for 75 yards and a YPC of 3 just wont cut it.

Overall assessment

There are bright spots on this team, no doubt and in the end there were more players that played well on Sunday than those who played poorly, unfortunately the players who didn't show up were at our most integral positions. We have Tampa Bay next, and I can't think of a better occasion to throw Matt Moore to the wolves and see what he can do. The season may be lost, but I remain a steadfast Panther fan who will be pulling on Sunday no matter what, and I'll be here same time, same day as your Monday Morning Optimist.

30% Optimistic as the Bucs come to town.