Minnesota owes this win to Carolina’s terrible play-calling
Following Chad Beebe’s muffed punt in the fourth quarter on Sunday, the Panthers got the ball on offense with 2:10 left in the game.
Instead of attempting to take as much time off of the clock as possible, Carolina only managed to possess the ball for 19 seconds and Minnesota had plenty of time to put together a game-winning drive.
The Panthers probably would have been able to run more time off the clock if they hadn’t decided to pass on 3rd-and-goal from the Vikings 3-yard line. That pass ended up being incomplete and it stopped the clock for a Minnesota team that no longer had any timeouts.
Carolina head coach Matt Rhule is in the middle of his first NFL season and his inexperience showed during the end of the matchup on Sunday. The Panthers should have been calling run plays as much as possible when they had the ball with less than three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
Instead, Carolina kept throwing incompletions that wound up stopping the clock to give the Vikings the opportunity to win the game.