Agree with a lot of this. I was talking to a friend (Panthers fan) about how frustrating Sunday was to watch, even though the end made everything okay. His response was that he respected us a lot more as a contender after last week. Here were his main points for talking me off the ledge of disappointment:
- Titans were healthy and coming off their Bye week
- Our offense is expected to lose some production without Sammy, Shady, and Karlos
- As an example, let's take the 5-0 Cincinnati Bengals. Do you think their offense would look the same if AJ Green, Jeremy Hill, and Giovanni Bernard were all sitting on the sidelines?
- Our defense showed its resilience by being out on the field for over 2/3 of the first half and only allowing 3 points despite the Titans having consistently short fields
- While it wasn't pretty, yesterday is pretty much what we expected our team to do coming into the year (Turnover free QB Play, not very good offense, relying on the defense to keep games close)