CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When Carolina Panthers nickel back Chau Smith-Wade saw Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. turn his body to the left and prepare to throw a short dump-off pass in the left flat Sunday at Bank America Stadium, his eyes lit up and he instinctively raced to jump the route.
It was a play Smith-Wade had seen on video and knew might be coming.
So he accelerated toward the ball, stepped in front of intended target Bijan Robinson to grab the pass with two hands, then raced 11 yards to the end zone to give Carolina a 17-0 lead early in the third quarter. The Panthers would go on to intercept Penix twice and force three turnovers overall in a 30-0 rivalry rout of the Falcons.
“When you score in every phase, you give yourself a great chance to win,” Panthers second-year head coach Dave Canales said.
Despite benching Penix with 11 minutes left in the game for veteran Kirk Cousins with the Falcons trailing 27-0, second-year head coach Raheem Morris squashed talk of making a change at quarterback after the game.
Morris said he removed the second-year pro to avoid unnecessary injury with the game “out of hand.”
“I just think he missed his throws today,” Morris said. “We won’t make excuses. We did not play well in any phase, and he did not play well as well. We’ve got to play well around him, and we’ve got to play better across the board.”
When asked if Cousins would be able to compete for a starting job leading up to next Sunday’s home game against the Washington Commanders (1-2), Morris said, “no.”
Penix finished 18-of-36 passing for 172 yards. He was also a nonfactor with his feet, managing just 9 yards on two carries.
The No. 8 pick of the 2024 draft who replaced Cousins for the final three games last season has just one touchdown pass in three games this season for the Falcons, who fell to 1-2 overall and 0-2 in NFC South Division play. He has completed 63.5% of his passes and is averaging fewer than 150 yards per game through the air.
Penix’s struggles came against the same team he lit up for 312 yards and two touchdowns in a 44-38 overtime loss in Atlanta during the regular-season finale as a rookie.
Smith-Wade said the Panthers (1-2), who were playing their home and division opener, planned to take advantage of Penix’s inexperience and penchant for being careless with the football.
“We knew going into this week that he could potentially make some some reckless throws,” Smith-Wade said. “And I just happened to go out there and take advantage of it.”
Penix admitted after the game he needs to do a better job of taking care of the football and avoiding turnovers.
“We’ve got to execute better to put ourselves in a better position to win,” Penix said. “I’ve got to give guys opportunities to make plays, and I did mess up on that at times during the game.”
Outside of Robinson — the Atlanta starting running back had 72 yards rushing and 39 receiving — the Falcons got little production from their offense, and he said the flat showing for the Falcons surprised him.
The quarterback headsets for both teams were malfunctioning early in the game, but Penix refused to use that as an excuse.
“We prepared at a high level to make sure we got the results we wanted, but we didn’t,” Penix said. “They were a better team today.”
As for getting benched, he said that was difficult to take because he loves to compete regardless of the situation.
“I’m never OK with not playing,” said Penix, who led the University of Washington to the College Football Playoff national championship game in his final season with the Huskies. “But at the end of the day, I listen to my head coach. He’s doing what he feels is best for the team, and the decision was made by him. So I’ve got to respect it and support Kirk whenever he is out there, because he does that for me.”
Panthers quarterback Bryce Young, the No. 1 pick of the 2023 draft who was benched for more than a month last season, was just 16-for-24 passing for 121 yards. However, he ran for a touchdown and avoided mistakes after turning the ball over five times in the previous two games, road losses to the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Arizona Cardinals that resulted in his third straight 0-2 start as a pro.
The Panthers scored on their first possession on a 4-yard scamper by Young around the left end, and rookie kicker. Fitzgerald made a 57-yarder — his first of three field goals in the game — to make it 10-0 entering halftime.
“We put an emphasis on having the urgency to start fast,” Young said. “The defense getting a stop right off the bat and the offense going down and getting a score, I think that was big.”
The Panthers pitched the shutout — Carolina’s first since November 2020 — despite playing without injured defensive end Turk Wharton and outside linebacker Pat Jones, two of the team’s biggest free agency pickups in the offseason.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for coming out of camp,” defensive end Derrick Brown said. “I feel like this is how we executed during camp, the physicality we had during camp. So to be able to come out here and put it on display and get the result we did today, we’re happy about it.”
The Falcons had their chances, but Carolina’s defense thwarted every opportunity, even when returner Trevor Etienne fumbled a punt at the Carolina 33. Atlanta kicker Parker Romo, who replaced the since-released Younghoe Koo a week earlier and went 5-for-5 on field goals in his debut, missed from 49 and 55 yards in the first quarter. The Atlanta-area native didn’t get any other chances Sunday, and it’s unclear if he’ll get any more opportunities with the Falcons at all.
“We had two misses, so obviously you have to evaluate those things when we move on and figure out what we’ve got going on,” Morris said. “We can’t have those moments.”
The final straw for Koo was missing a 44-yard attempt with a chance to force overtime of Atlanta’s 23-20 home loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the season opener, which led to the open tryout that Romo came through to get signed to the Falcons’ practice squad before being elevated to the active roster for last week’s 22-6 road win against the Minnesota Vikings.
Atlanta’s offense struggled to find the end zone in Minneapolis, but a dominant showing by the defense made the victory impressive. There was no carryover to speak of Sunday, when it was the Panthers who put together a surprising show.
After the interception return by Smith-Wade, Mike Jackson could have had another pick-6 later in the quarter but was tripped up by Penix after a 54-yard return. The Panthers — who return to the road next weekend to face the New England Patriots (1-2) — put the game away a few plays later on a 1-yard touchdown run by Rico Dowdle early in the fourth.
“It was electric,” Young said of the atmosphere Sunday. “There was great energy, and to start like that at home means a lot.”