Panthers Devour Cardinals

A lot can happen in ten years. It was ten years ago that an unknown quarterback named Jake Delhomme couldn't beat out some other guy named Kurt Warner to win the starting job for the Amsterdam Admirals in NFL Europe. Jake then had to play second fiddle as a backup to Warner. If the NFL season ended today, the Panthers would be the No. 2 seed in NFC.

Delhomme commented about facing his old teammate Warner for the first time, "Talked to him a good while before the game. Didn't get to talk to him after. I would have probably asked him for his autograph."

This victory leaves Carolina alone in first place in the NFC South because of a Tampa Bay (5-3) lost to Dallas and the Falcons (4-3) also lost the bird fight to the Eagles.

NFL FACT: West Coast teams are 0-8 this season when traveling to the East Coast to play 1 pm games.

The first quarter was all Arizona with a Neil Rackers 21 yard field goal. Until this game, Carolina was the only team in the NFL not to allow opponents to score points on their first possession.

In the second quarter, Kurt Warner led the Cardinals down the field and completed a 5 yard pass to Anquan Boldin. The Panthers show a small sign of life, but not much as John Kasay nailed a 23 yard field goal to put the Panthers on the board. Kasay's field goal ties him with Jan Stenerud for 8th in NFL history with 373 field goals.

The third quarter was a shootout as Arizona's Tim Hightower ran for a 2-yard touchdown. Not to be out done, Carolina's DeAngelo Williams rushed for a 15-yard touchdown.

FUN FACT: The Panthers are 7-0 when Williams rushes for 80+ yards.

The Panthers weren't finished as Steve Smith caught an 18-yard pass to tie Carolina 17 - 17. The Cardinal's Anquan Boldin caught s 2-yard pass from Kurt Warner with a failed point after attempt. Smith catches a beautiful 65-yard pass.

The fourth quarter was quiet as the only score was a John Kasay 50 yard field goal to make the Panthers victorious 27-23.




Carolina gave Kurt Warner his first interception of the season as Jon Beason takes the ball for a 44 yard INT.

FUN FACT: Jake Delhomme is 3-0 all time versus the Cardinals.

For the second time this season, the Panthers overcame a 14-point second half deficit at home.
After the game Jake Delhomme said, “Hey, 6-2 compared to 5-3 going into the break is huge. Hopefully we can look back on this game down the line and say that it was a pivotal win for us. We’ve given ourselves a chance. But it’s only eight weeks.”

He also commented, “At halftime we were upset with ourselves offensively. We left some points out on the board and we didn't play good football. That was the thing we said, take it one play at a time and don’t get caught up in everything else.”

Kurt Warner was positive as he answered, "We did a lot of good things. It's a good football team, but bottom line we made one too many mistakes."

John Fox commented, “We knew we were going to have our hands full defensively and did, I think our offense came out and sparked us in the second half.” "That was a character win."