The Panthers leave Week 1 with a lot to clean up, but they also walk into Week 2 with a chance to reset in a place that has treated Bryce Young very well.
Carolina heads to Atlanta on Sunday for a division matchup with the Falcons, coming off a chaotic 59-37 loss to the Bears in the opener. That game showed plenty of firepower from the Panthers offense, but it also left the defense with a long list of problems after Chicago piled up 552 total yards, eight touchdowns and a 71.4-percent success rate on third down. The Bears also did most of their damage on the ground, rolling for 291 rushing yards and six scores.
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero didn’t hide from the criticism after that performance, while also making it clear the only fix is improvement.
"Gotta have it both ways, right?" he said on Thursday.
"When things go well, I get a lot of praise. When things don't, I don't.
"And I get that part of it. That's fine.
But it doesn't really matter. We have to continue to just find a way to get better, and that's the objective."
The task won’t be easy, even if Atlanta’s offense looked manageable in Week 1. With veteran Cooper Rush filling in for Tua Tagovailoa and/or Michael Penix Jr., the Falcons got 143 passing yards, a touchdown and two interceptions. The bigger problem for Carolina is what comes next: Bijan Robinson.
Robinson, the NFL’s scrimmage yards leader from 2025, has been a headache for the Panthers in recent meetings. Over his last four games against Carolina, he has rushed for 441 yards and six touchdowns.
That defensive challenge comes at the same time Young is trying to keep the momentum from one of the best passing performances of his career. In the loss to Chicago, the Panthers quarterback threw for 361 yards, his second-highest total, and found the end zone four times. It followed a 2025 season finale in Atlanta where he passed for a franchise-record 448 yards and three touchdowns in a 30-27 overtime win, and the year before that he finished the 2024 campaign with five total touchdowns in another overtime victory at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
When asked Wednesday about his success in Atlanta, Young kept the focus on the present.
"It's not something that really enters my mind," he told reporters. "It's all about this week.
We have a lot of respect for them-as a team, as a defense. Obviously, this is a division game.
There's a lot for us. So, it's all about building that confidence this week, throughout practice and get ready to go out there."
Young’s latest outing gave Carolina plenty to build on, and a big part of that came through wide receiver Jalen Coker. The third-year wideout caught eight passes for a career-high 138 yards and two touchdowns against Chicago. Including Carolina’s wild-card game against the Rams, Coker has 17 receptions for 272 yards and three touchdowns over his last two games.
Tetairoa McMillan also had a solid opener with five catches for 75 yards, but he was outpaced by Coker in targets, 9-8, and lost a costly fumble early in the fourth quarter. Over their last eight games together, Coker has been the more productive receiver, with 36 catches for 516 yards and six touchdowns on 43 targets, while McMillan has 24 receptions for 387 yards and two touchdowns on 40 targets.
Still, the Panthers may not be ready to crown a new top target just yet. Chicago may have tilted its attention toward McMillan and opened the door for Coker to do more damage. And McMillan, who had a career-high 130 receiving yards in Carolina’s 2025 trip to Atlanta, could easily be part of the answer again.
For Carolina, that makes this a pretty interesting Week 2 setup: a quarterback who has played his best football in this building, a receiver group producing in waves, and a defense trying to recover fast enough to keep Bijan Robinson from taking over the game.
In Other News...
Panthers May Have Found The Defensive Difference-Maker They Paid For
A week after looking like he was still finding his footing, Devin Lloyd delivered the kind of game the Panthers had in mind when they brought him in. Against the Falcons in Week 2, the linebacker was everywhere, piling up tackles, disrupting plays in the backfield, getting home for a sack and finishing with a pair of interceptions, one of them going back for a touchdown.
It was the kind of all-around defensive impact that can reshape how a game feels in real time, and it came with a historical nod attached to it, too, drawing comparisons to Hall of Famer Aeneas Williams. For Carolina, the bigger question now is whether this was the start of something bigger or just the rare peak of a player who has already shown he can swing a game in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Face A Tough Defensive Test With Week 2 Inactives Set
The Panthers head into their Week 2 matchup with Atlanta already having to sort through a familiar kind of early-season roster shuffle. Bobby Brown III and Pat Jones are among the inactive players, joining Ja'Tavion Sanders, Haynes King, Chau Smith-Wade, Tyrel Dodson and Albert Reese on the sideline as Carolina trims down to its game-day group.
There is some good news in the mix, though, with Jalen Coker cleared to play after working back from an ankle injury. In a game that will put Carolinas defense under an immediate test, the availability of key depth pieces could matter just as much as the names missing from the list, especially with a divisional opponent waiting and no shortage of pressure on the Panthers to hold up on that side of the ball. [Read more 🡒]
Panthers Fast Start Against Falcons Has Fans Watching One Big Thing
The Panthers came out of their Week 2 meeting with the Falcons looking much sharper than they did in the opener, and the kind of early burst fans have been waiting for finally showed up. Darren Waller finding the end zone for his first Carolina touchdown gave the offense a lift, while the defense added pressure with sacks and turnovers to help set the tone in a game that already felt more lively and connected than last weeks effort.
What makes it interesting from here is whether that start can turn into something the Panthers can actually build on once the game settles in. The broadcast gave fans a clear look at the improvement, and with the schedule moving quickly into the next stretch, this is the sort of performance Carolina needs to see repeat itself before anyone starts trusting the bigger picture. [Read more 🡒]