Panthers vs. Patriots: Highlights, game tracker and more

The Carolina Panthers faced the New England Patriots on Sunday, Oct. 1 in Week 4 of the 2017 NFL season. Here are the highlights from the game.

The Carolina Panthers were licking their wounds from a tough home loss in Week 3 and heading to Gillette Stadium is never the place to go to try and get over a defeat. The New England Patriots are always a tough out, but they’re even harder to beat in front of their faithful crowd.

Shockingly enough, this looked like it might be a defensive struggle either. Both units were making plays and the Panthers and Patriots only managed a field goal apiece in the first 15 minutes of action. However, things opened up in the second quarter.

Tom Brady got things started by finding Chris Hogan for a score. Then Cam Newton and Fozzy Whittaker answered with a 28-yard touchdown of their own. New England would add two more field goals in the second quarter, but the Panthers found the end zone again to take a 17-16 lead into the locker room.

Newton and Carolina came out of the locker room firing. Their defense showed a ton of guts with a number of fantastic efforts to stop Brady and the Pats. Meanwhile, the Panthers kept pounding and Devin Funchess added his second touchdown of the game in the third quarter. That gave them a big 23-16 lead, but they added to it further.

Early in the fourth quarter, the polarizing quarterback put the ball in his own hands and rushed for a score. That allowed them to go up by two scores. Of course, never count out Brady and Co. as they started trying to mount a comeback. They pulled within one score on a Dion Lewis rushing touchdown. Then came the real work, but Carolina apparently wasn’t ready.

New England held Newton and the offense to a three-and-out, and got the ball back quickly. Brady didn’t hesitate to march down the field with ease, finding Danny Amendola for a one-yeard score to tie it up at 30.

However, the Panthers came back with some fight. With Jonathan Stewart running well, they were able to get into field goal range. They put their faith in Graham Gano from 48 yards away, and he delivered as time expired to pick up the massive win.

Highlights

Next: Ranking the 25 best NFL games of Sept. 2017

While this game won’t have a lot of impact in terms of tie breakers later on, it can go a long way towards shaping each team’s season. 3-1 looks much better than 2-2, especially when playing in divisions that are currently pretty tight.