The best thing you can say about the Carolina Panthers’ 2025 preseason is that it’s over.
The Panthers concluded a very forgettable series of three exhibitions Thursday night with a 19-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Bank of America Stadium. That means they finished the preseason 0-3, and in those games they were outscored by a combined score of 69-23.
There’s no way to sugarcoat that. No matter who’s playing, no matter how many starters are sitting out, a team that’s getting outscored by a 3-to-1 margin over a three-week stretch isn’t playing well enough. The 2025 Panthers did nothing in this preseason that would make you go, “Whoa! These guys are finally getting good again!”
Maybe that’s true. But if you’re thinking that, you’re just basing it on faith, or optimism, or whatever else is going to get you through the next couple of weeks until Carolina plays its first real game Sept. 7 at Jacksonville. Because based purely on what we’ve seen, it’s not a logical conclusion.
What we learned Thursday really wasn’t much, because the Panthers sat out all of their starters. There were a few Panthers highlights: Rookie safety Lathan Ransom had a nice interception and Carolina’s lone touchdown just before halftime came on a pretty throw and catch from third-string quarterback Jack Plummer to tight James Mitchell. Kicker Ryan Fitzgerald also made his only attempt, a 43-yard field goal.
Of that group, though, only Ransom is guaranteed to make the team when the Panthers make their cut down to 53 players over the weekend (although I sort of think Fitzgerald will wind up as the kicker, beating out Matthew Wright). Head coach Dave Canales sounded almost like a camp counselor at the end of the summer when he spoke after the game.
“It was a great group to coach,” Canales said. “We know we have a lot of hard decisions to make.”
It won’t be surprising if the Panthers make a trade or two as they construct their roster, as they are a little short at linebacker but have more good wide receivers and offensive linemen than usual.
Carolina at least moved the ball some in this game. After running only 46 plays a week ago against Houston and going 1 for 10 on third downs, this time Carolina ran 63 plays and was 9 for 16 on third down. Still, there was only 10 points. Plummer played the first half and led Carolina to all 10 of its points, although he threw an end-zone interception to wreck one promising drive. In the second half. New quarterback Bryce Perkins took over and couldn’t get much going.
To be fair, “the other Bryce” only showed up in Charlotte on Monday and was playing on Thursday. This was necessitated by the Panthers not wanting to play starter Bryce Young and also wanting to sit Andy Dalton (slight elbow injury).
The crowd was announced at 72,110, but there were maybe around 40,000 people in the stadium. At least half of them appeared to be Steelers fans, dressed in black and gold and roaring whenever their team did something decent. They didn’t get to see quarterback Aaron Rodgers play; the Steelers rested most of their starters, too.
By the end, though, everyone just wanted it to be over.
Down by nine points, the Panthers could have actually called timeout and attempted a field goal in the last 10 seconds — they were at the Steelers’ 22. Instead, Canales just let the clock run out.
Like everyone else, the coach was ready to turn the page on this preseason, hoping that the regular season will look a whole lot better.
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