Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 19, 1995 TAG: 9509190050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ED HARDIN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: ROCK HILL, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
At first glance, the schedule would appear to be in the Panthers' favor. After all, they have almost two weeks to get over Sunday's defeat in Death Valley.
But upon further review, this could be the worst possible time for Carolina's beleaguered NFL team to take time off. If the Panthers had their say they would probably rather play today instead of wait for the Oct.1 game against the Tampa Bay Bucs.
What is it the old-timers say? If you fall off a horse the best thing is to get right back up on it? The Panthers fell off Sunday. It might take a while to climb back on.
Carolina's 31-10 loss to the St.Louis Rams was even worse once the Panthers watched it on film. Thousands of people who chose to stay home Sunday to watch it on TV could have told them that Sunday night. No matter how many times you play this one back it ends up the same. The Panthers looked awful against the Rams.
``It was just the opposite of what we want to stand for,'' said Dom Capers, Carolina's coach.
``I'm embarrassed to pick up my check,'' linebacker Lamar Lathon said.
Nothing worked Sunday. While Carolina was able to glean positive moments from earlier losses in Atlanta and Buffalo, the Panthers were not able to put a positive spin on the Rams game.
And no matter how many four-dollar beers the fans in Death Valley consumed they, too, had trouble finding anything nice to say about their team. Midway through the first quarter they were booing. They booed again when starting quarterback Frank Reich was pulled for backup Jack Trudeau. When Trudeau was sacked and fumbled on his very first play they booed again.
The biggest cheer of the day was for rookie Kerry Collins, who entered in the fourth quarter in place of Trudeau.
Collins' first pass was intercepted and returned for a St.Louis touchdown.
Collins' fourth-quarter drive for a touchdown came in front of about 25,000 fans left in the stadium after a long, hot day of waiting for something to cheer about.
``We didn't give them a lot to cheer for,'' Panthers owner Jerry Richardson said.
Richardson couldn't have been happy about the performance. Only 54,000 fans bothered to make the drive to Clemson. That's about a third of the crowd expected for next months's Winston Cup race in Charlotte. Only four NFL games drew fewer fans Sunday.
Considering this was the first home game in Panthers history, the showing was alarming. Officials expected more than 60,000 fans when about 53,000 advance tickets were sold. That only about 1,000 got up Sunday morning and decided to drive down suggests that the first two losses took more of a toll on Panthers fans than Carolina officials realized.
And now they must wait almost two weeks to watch a game between the Panthers and the Buccaneers.
Between now and then a lot of people will be asking plenty of questions about the future of this franchise. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue watched the game, presumably to the end. He said he was not concerned about the lack of support Sunday.
``Our feelings about Carolina haven't changed one iota since the day the Panthers became the first of our two expansion franchises,'' Tagliabue said.
But that was before the game started.
Keywords:
FOOTBALL
by CNB