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"We didn't even play that well," lamented wide receiver Terrell Owens, who had four catches for 42 yards. "I mean, you're facing a rookie, you know? And you take that into account."
Said Kalil: "You don't want to put a revolving door on the position."
The Panthers have a terrific 1-2 punch at tailback, with DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart, but still lack big-play potential. As noted in a Saturday column for The Sports Xchange, the franchise has consistently struggled to find a complement to explosive wide receiver Steve Smith and on Sunday started a rookie at the No. 2 wideout spot for the third week in a row. Smith caught only three passes for 22 yards and there was a mock cheer when he finally made his first reception of the game with 10 minutes to play.
But even when [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] was handed a short field by a Carolina defense that again played hard, he struggled.
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] didn't get many shots.
"It's hard to say there were positives out there, because we lost," said [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u], who insisted he wasn't nervous beforehand, but might have been a "little cotton-mouth[ed]" in experiencing his initial taste of first-team action. "I felt comfortable in both the first and second halves. I think the second half [though], we were just more in a rhythm. ... We moved the ball."
And the odds are that Fox, who is without a contract for 2011 and unlikely to return here for a 10th campaign (but who is regarded league wide as a very good coach and who should have little trouble finding a head-coaching job if not with the Panthers), is essentially developing a quarterback for his successor. So why not play the youngster? The consensus around the league is that, Sunday's dismal start notwithstanding, [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] possesses NFL skills and the kind of moxie to play in the league.

In retrospect, the Bengals didn't play particularly well, either, especially quarterback Carson Palmer, whose passer rating (53.3) was actually worse than [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u]'s (53.6), and who threw two interceptions and had three more potential pickoffs dropped by Carolina defensive backs or linebackers.
After a Captain Munnerlyn interception on the Bengals' opening series set up Carolina at the Cincinnati 47-yard line, [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] fumbled away the snap just two plays later. The interception on the pass intended for Smith killed an opportunity that commenced at the Bengals' 21-yard line.
Actually, the biggest cheers of the day were reserved for those moments when the scoreboard at Bank of America Stadium flashed updates from the NASCAR race at the Dover International Speedway.
[link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] didn't drown completely in the emotional deluge attached to a first start, but center Ryan Kalil used the term "treading water sometimes," and running back Mike Goodson chimed in with "pretty difficult" to describe the rookie's first start. Both seemed to capture the essence of the fractured moment. The [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] debut certainly didn't go swimmingly, that's for sure.
The former Notre Dame star, a second-round draft pick and the 48th overall selection in the 2010 draft, completed 16 of 33 attempts for 188 yards, no touchdowns and one interception. It's the kind of debut most NFL observers expect from a rookie quarterback and certainly the kind [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] delivered. Starting in place of Matt Moore, who had been largely ineffective in his two starts, the learning curve for [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] was more like Dead Man's Curve.
In the first half, during which [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] compiled a passer rating of 0.0, the Panthers only once threw on consecutive plays. For the game, Carolina offered up an offense that appeared to be on Ambien. On 13 possessions, the Panthers went three-and-out seven times. Only twice did Carolina net more than 40 yards in a series. Making things even tougher on [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] was the fact the Panthers began seven series at their own 20-yard line or worse. Four possessions started at or inside the 11-yard line.
Clearly, though, the Panthers and [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] didn't have great rhythm. Fox declined to commit to [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] as his starter for next week's game at New Orleans -- the Panthers haven't opened a season at 0-4 since 1998; but the Saints will be fuming after Sunday's overtime defeat to Atlanta, and the Superdome is a difficult environment in any circumstance. Even so, it would be somewhat surprising to see the Panthers make another quarterback change.
"I just run my routes, do what I'm told, and if the ball comes my way, I catch it," said Smith, who refused to blame the Panthers' continuing offensive doldrums on having a rookie quarterback. "If it doesn't come my way, well ..."
Rookie [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] has his share of struggles in first start
Mercifully, for the small, poncho-clad home crowd, the skies didn't open up again after the initial pre-game downpour. Notably, neither did the Panthers' offense, which did its best to protect its rookie starter, and for the most part adhered to a game plan that appeared to have been drawn up on Glenn Beck's blackboard.
But facing a rookie quarterback in his first start,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the Bengals seemed to sense they had plenty of margin for error, and often played like it. The bar for any rookie quarterback making his first start is typically set low and [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] on Sunday couldn't successfully navigate a fairly modest Limbo test.
Give [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] credit for this much: He didn't spend the entire afternoon staring down Smith, who was targeted five times, according to official league statistics. The one time [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u] locked in on Smith, on a first-down play from the Cincinnati 21-yard line following a Chris Godfrey interception, he was picked off.
Charlotte, N.C. -- About 90 minutes before the start of Sunday's game, it began to rain, literally, on [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u]'s parade.
Confidence he ain't lacking. Playing time and a surrounding cast, he is.
"In this league," said [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u], "you have to make the plays when you've got a shot."
Len Pasquarelli is a Senior NFL Writer for The Sports Xchange. He has covered the NFL for 33 years and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee. His NFL coverage earned recognition as the winner of the McCann Award for distinguished reporting in 2008.
And things didn't clear up most of the day for the Carolina Panthers' rookie -- making the first regular-season start of his career -- except for a brief period in the third quarter. To say that the first start of [link widoczny dla zalogowanych][/u]'s career was stormy, a 20-7 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals that left the Panthers at 0-3 for the second year in a row, and probably left lame-duck coach John Fox daydreaming about his next gig in the league, would be an understatement.

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