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ATLANTA – A week after being shredded by the Chicago Bears for 59 points, the Carolina Panthers defense found the perfect get-well tonic: Cooper Rush and Jack Strand.
The Panthers forced two turnovers – a Rush fumble, then a Rush interception – on the first two drives by the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
And that was just the beginning.
It got so bad during the Panthers’ 34-3 march through Atlanta that Rush, the No. 3 quarterback behind the injured Michael Penix, Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa, was benched in the third quarter after his third turnover for Strand, an undrafted rookie from Minnesota State-Moorhead, as a steady rain of boos from the home crowd persisted.
Then Strand proceeded to fork over two more giveaways.
“There’s no way to win in the NFL like that,” said first-year Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski, whose offense has yet to advance to the red zone after two games. “We’ll have to learn from it.”
Rush was pulled after throwing his second interception of the game to Devin Lloyd, floating unnoticed in a zone before reaching up to snag throw. Lloyd nearly ran it back for a pick-six but was chased down by WR Drake London for a 53-yard return.
“Oh, he’s the one who tackled me?” Lloyd said, asked by USA TODAY Sports to recall the sequence. “He’s a good athlete. I’m not surprised.”
It didn’t take long for Lloyd to take an interception to the end zone. He picked off a Strand pass and weaved 16 yards with the return for a touchdown.
Devin Lloyd stars for Panthers
Lloyd, who signed as an offseason free agent after four seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars, had himself quite a day. Checkout his stat line: A game-high nine tackles (seven solo), two tackles for loss, one sack, one quarterback hit, three pass break-ups. And the two interceptions.
Panthers coach Dave Canales said it was the greatest single-game performance he’s ever been a part of. Panthers D-tackle Derrick Brown said there’s no debate that Lloyd will claim NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors.
When someone suggested that Lloyd was in a “flow state,” he could not disagree.
Asked to describe it, Lloyd said, “It’s a stillness, it’s tranquil. But a violent tranquil.”
That was surely the case on another key play late in the first quarter when Stefanski went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Panthers’ 31. London took a handoff on a jet sweep but was stuffed by Lloyd for a 2-yard loss.
“We repped the same exact play against our offense on Friday,” Lloyd explained. “It was our offense’s play, not Atlanta’s. It just happened to be the same jet sweep, same direction. Same result in practice, same result in the game. Pretty ironic how that happened.”
Like a flow state. After last week, the Panthers needed a rebound in the worst way. They gave up eight touchdowns and yielded nearly 300 rushing yards to the Bears in Week 1. On Sunday, they collected five turnovers and three sacks, while allowing 286 total yards.
“It’s good to put good tape on film and make what we have come to life,” Lloyd said. “We have a bar set. We’re going to continue to build on that.”
Gone, but not forgotten, is the bad taste from Week 1.
“Everybody else talked about it all week,” Brown maintained, “but I put it to bed on Monday.”
Then again, he couldn’t have played another game any sooner.
Said Brown, “I could have played again on Monday.”
Especially when the matchup comes in the form of good medicine from the Falcons offense.
Follow Bell on X: @JarrettBell