Head referee Gerald Wright inadvertently introduced himself to the Bank of America Stadium crowd, saying, “Hi, this is Gerald,” over his mega microphone.
And when Wright announced that a routine-looking turnover would be reviewed, the crowd moaned, unaware of a new rule that mandates reviews of all turnovers.
Those weren’t the only signs that the Carolina Panthers’ 26-13 loss to the Houston Texans was their preseason opener.
There were opening-game gaffes to be sure, but also occasional glimpses of what could be when the Panthers open for real in a month.
“I’m just disappointed because I expected us to come out and play a little bit better than we did,” Panthers head coach Ron Rivera said. “The nice thing about it is that it is a preseason game. We will learn from this and we will get better.”
Rivera must have used the word “disappointed” two dozen times in his postgame press conference. Wide receiverSeyi Ajirotutu chose another word to describe Rivera’s postgame mood in the locker room.
“He was embarrassed,” Ajirotutu said. “We’ve practiced harder, we’ve executed better. We just didn’t execute tonight. There’s no reason I can point to other than saying we just didn’t play well.”
The reality is, sometimes that just happens in sports. A ho-hum performance is never satisfactory, but when it happens in the first of four preseason games, there’s no need to turn panicky.
