Princely Umanmielen sat at his locker in complete silence, still in his full uniform, roughly 30 minutes after the final whistle blew on Saturday.
The rookie arrived in Charlotte in May. He hadn’t lived through the doldrums of the Carolina Panthers’ past handful of years. He didn’t know the pain of finishing with a 2-15 record in 2023. Furthermore, he also didn’t have to deal with the lukewarm 5-12 campaign of 2024.
And yet, the Panthers’ third-round pick from Ole Miss felt the entire weight of Carolina’s 34-31 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
The Panthers finished the season at 8-9, won a division title for the first time since 2015, and hosted their first home playoff game in a decade. These are glory days compared to the Matt Rhule and Frank Reich eras — but Umanmielen was frustrated and angered to lose a game that the Panthers led, 31-27, with 2:39 left in the fourth quarter.
“My biggest takeaway is probably that we’re a playoff-caliber team,” Umanmielen told The Charlotte Observer. “And in the future, we just gotta try to dominate teams. I feel like this season we’ve had close wins and a lot of close losses. I feel like we’ve got to get to a point where we dominate people.”
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford sliced up defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero’s unit in the final two minutes.
With three timeouts, which ended up not being used, the Rams had plenty of time to target the middle of the field against prevent defense. Stafford completed 7 of 8 passes for 71 yards and a touchdown.
“He’s one of the best at it,” said linebacker Christian Rozeboom, who won a Super Bowl with Stafford in L.A. “And I wish we could have made a play. It’s one that’s going to sting, but at the end of the day, I’m extremely proud of each and every guy on that field.”
The trip to pay dirt came on a 19-yard heave to tight end Colby Parkinson, who skied over safety Tre’von Moehrig for the game-winning score with 38 seconds remaining.
The Panthers couldn’t pressure Stafford, and he sprayed the field with tosses to his top targets like Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. The touchdown throw from Stafford to Parkinson was the type of toss an MVP candidate like Stafford makes when it matters the most.
But was the defense too conservative?
“My philosophy, period — and I’ve learned this in my years in the league — just play what’s called, man,” said safety Nick Scott, who had a would-be interception broken up early in the fourth quarter. “I don’t have opinions on what Coach (Evero) calls. He’s in this position for a reason, and it’s my job to get communication across the board and make sure we execute. Guys were playing hard, everybody on that drive was doing their job, and getting guys down on the ground. They were attacking the middle of the field just because they had timeouts and plenty of time, so they didn’t have to attack the sideline. Just trying to play the call and get guys down on the ground and make ‘em earn everything.”
The final defensive series didn’t feature two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jaycee Horn. The Panthers’ No. 1 coverage defender was knocked out of the game when he collided with a pair of teammates on a pass breakup on the penultimate defensive drive.
He was replaced by special teams contributor Akayleb Evans, who played just 51 defensive snaps in the regular season. Horn was ruled out with a concussion in the middle of Stafford’s onslaught of successful passes.
With Stafford targeting the middle of the field, Evans was asked to come in cold.
“We’d like to execute better, but honestly, I don’t feel like we have any regrets,” Evans said. “We put our best foot forward, and it just didn’t go our way.”
Following the game, the Panthers’ locker room was somber.
Rozeboom and fellow linebacker Claudin Cherelus lamented the growth the team and the defense had made in 2025. Cornerback Chau Smith-Wade and outside linebacker Trevis Gipson quietly put their focus on the upside of the future.
And cornerback Mike Jackson, who had four pass breakups and an interception in the playoff game, dismissed criticism of Evero’s play-calling on the defense’s final drive.
“At the end of the day, nobody gave us a chance,” Jackson said. “It really don’t matter. The people that’s questioning, let me see what you can do. Some of y’all credentials, and how you know coverage. How you know when to blitz and when not to blitz. They got armchair quarterbacks, but at the end of the day, you’re not doing this for a living.”
The Panthers’ defense gave up 31 points. Stafford threw for 304 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. Rams running backs Kyren Williams and Blake Corum combined for 102 rushing yards on 24 carries.
While Carolina produced one takeaway, it also only produced one sack.
“I don’t really have words for it,” Cherelus said. “I watched it, felt like we were executing how we were supposed to. It’s just tough. They have a Hall-of-Fame quarterback, they’ve got good players, they made some plays they needed to, they had some time. At the end of the day, it just comes to a full game. It’s not just a final drive-type of thing. I don’t blame anyone on no single play, besides myself. I’m hard on myself.”
As the Panthers enter the offseason, they’ll evaluate every aspect of the organization.
Will the sting of the defense’s final drive linger to the point it leads to change? The unit improved across the board throughout the regular season, but the final memory is typically the one that sticks, fair or not.
It shouldn’t come down to one game or one series. But in the whirlwind world of the NFL, anything is possible, especially after an early exit from an otherwise uplifting campaign.
Mike Kaye
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