Smiles have been few and far between around the Panthers the past two years, but there were plenty of them in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon.
Andy Dalton threw for 319 yards and three scores in his first game since benching quarterback Bryce Young, leading the Panthers to a 36-22 win over the Raiders. The team gained more yards than they did in their first two games combined, and Dalton’s presence at quarterback had the impact the Panthers were hoping to see in the wake of the quarterback change.
Dalton said the week had been “heavy” because of the change, but Sunday’s win lifted a lot of weight off people’s shoulders.
“I mean, it shows. What can we do?“I think that’s what we want,” Dalton said via the team’s website. “We’ve shown what our standard is now, we know what we can do and the goal is to be able to prove that every week. For us, this was a big win, the first one of the year and now it’s like, ‘OK, let’s go.’ We know the odds are there. We have to play to that standard.”
Dalton will welcome its first NFL team to town next weekend, and the key to beating the Bengals will be building on Sunday’s success while maintaining the calm, confident approach the team brought to the game. The quarterback should add to that effort, and he’s a welcome change of scenery in Carolina.
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