The word ‘sloppy’ is being thrown around a lot to describe the Carolina Panthers Week 1 loss to the Los Angeles Rams. To me, that implies a carelessness that I didn’t see on the field. Mistakes were made, to be sure, but they looked more like offseason rust than an inattention to the game.
My takeaway was that a team that can hang with the one of the best teams in the NFC even after making as many mistakes as the Panthers did could easily be one of those best teams in the NFC, themselves.