Patriots looking to bounce back
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The Patriots knew the first month of their 2017 schedule would feature tough early matchups with Drew Brees and Cam Newton.
What they couldn’t have predicted is how much trouble they would also have with quarterbacks Alex Smith and rookie Deshaun Watson.
Watson only was able to give the Patriots a close call in Week 3. But Smith torched New England in Week 1, and Newton’s Panthers finally found their footing enough to walk out of Gillette Stadium with a 33-30 win on Sunday.
As the Patriots now try to turn the page on their second home loss of the season, they have a short turnaround before a Thursday night road matchup with Tampa Bay and quarterback Jameis Winston. Winston happens to be coming off his best outing of 2017.
Safety Patrick Chung said there weren’t any magic bullets in Monday’s video study to pinpoint what is ailing the defense.
“Just get better, honestly,” he said. “The game’s over. … We didn’t play good. So we have to get a bounce-back game here, and get back to how we usually play.”
Panthers seek boost from win
Cowboys seek magic against Pack
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Panthers coach Ron Rivera hopes his team’s road win at New England on Sunday serves as a “catalyst” moving forward.
Carolina (3-1) beat the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots 33-30 in Foxborough, a place where Tom Brady rarely loses, to move back into a tie for first place in the NFC South with the Falcons.
“I like to think it’s something we can build on,” Rivera said.
Rivera compares the win to the Panthers traveling to Seattle and beating the Seahawks in 2015. The Seahawks had been to the Super Bowl the previous two seasons and been a nemesis for the Panthers leading up to the game.
But Carolina won and went on to go 14-0 and reach the Super Bowl, where it lost to the Denver Broncos. Rivera said the win over Seattle gave the Panthers the belief that they could win big games.
“The Seahawks were the watermark for us as far as the NFC was concerned” in 2015, Rivera said. “We were able to have success there, and from that point on we were able to have success that season. … It instills confidence that you need to play with.”
But Rivera also acknowledged it is a whathave-you-done-for-melately league, and that the Panthers can ill afford to let their guard down.
Four of Carolina’s next five games are against teams with winning records, including three division leaders: Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta.
Raiders QB Carr out 2 to 6 weeks
FRISCO, Texas — Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott lost two games when both played during a remarkable rookie year for the Dallas Cowboys.
The star quarterback and running back have already matched that a quarter of the way through what’s been an uneven second season. They face Green Bay on Sunday less than nine months after the Packers (3-1) spoiled the duo’s first playoff appearance as the NFC’s top seed at home.
The Cowboys (2-2) solved the problem of slow starts in two straight games but created a new one by letting an 11-point lead slip away in a surprising 35-30 loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
Prescott, last year’s NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, was off target as the Cowboys punted three straight times in the third quarter after scoring on all four first-half drives Sunday. The fourth possession after halftime ended with his third interception of the season. Prescott threw four his entire rookie year.
“I think I missed some throws in the second half that I didn’t miss in the first half or that I can’t miss, simply,” Prescott said. “Going along with that, it is just knowing where I am going with the ball so that my feet can be in tune with my body.”
Prescott was 20-of-36 for 252 yards and three touchdowns with his third sub-100 passer rating in four games.
ALAMEDA, Calif. — Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr will miss two yo six weeks after breaking a bone in his back during a loss to the Denver Broncos.
Coach Jack Del Rio said Monday that a CT scan showed that Carr has a transverse process fracture in his back after being injured in the third quarter of a 16-10 loss Sunday. Del Rio said these injuries typically sideline players for two to six weeks.
“It’s always a big blow to lose a good player, a key player and your quarterback,” Del Rio said. “The good news is he’s not gone for the year. We’ll get him back. It could be as short as two weeks; it could be longer. We’ll see. We’ll deal with that as it goes.”
Former Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and the Panthers’ Cam Newton had similar injuries in 2014 and missed only one game each.
This is the second significant injury Carr has suffered in less than 10 months. He broke his leg in the second-to-last game of the regular season in 2016 with the Raiders holding a 12-3 record.
The Raiders hope they are better equipped to handle the absence this year with E.J. Manuel at quarterback. Manuel, a first-round pick in Buffalo in 2013, showed some encouraging signs when he relieved Carr after the injury.