Zane Gonzalez injury leaves Panthers scrambling

— There were a number of things for the Panthers to be upset by Sunday.

But near the top of Rhule’s mind were more penalties, which came at unfortunate times.

Already among the top teams in the league in that category, the Panthers were flagged five times for 55 yards, including some particularly poorly timed ones.

In his opening statement after the loss, Rhule pointed specifically at a roughing the passer call on Brian Burns just before halftime, which led to a Bills’ field goal, and an unnecessary roughness call on Bravvion Roy, which came after a third-down stop on a drive the Bills would eventually take to the end zone.

“The most disappointing thing for me is just the undisciplined personal fouls,” Rhule said. “One, I believe, leads to points at the end of the half in the two-minute offense, and then obviously, we have them stopped, give them a first down, quarterback scrambles, they get they get a touchdown. Really 10 points, to me, come off of undisciplined plays by our defensive linemen. That, too, was the story of the game.”

Roy wasn’t even on the field for his, as he was standing on the sidelines when Yetur Gross-Matos chased Bills quarterback Josh Allen out of bounds. There was a large scrum afterward, and Burns said there was “chaos,” and that one Bills player shoved Rhule in the back. Roy was in Allen’s face as he left the fray, and something happened.

“We’ve got to stop beating ourselves,” Burns said. “All these penalties, me included. There’s a lot of opportunities out there, and all these penalties, these personal fouls and roughing the passer and all kind of B-S on the sideline. It’s got to stop. It’s beating us. Because it’s crucial downs it’s happening on.”

— The day as a whole wasn’t much to celebrate, but a couple of defensive players made key plays.

Safety Jeremy Chinn had his first interception of the year, and Gross-Matos had 2.5 sacks (matching his entire rookie season).

“We lost,” Gross-Matos said. “So obviously we need more production, and that’s that. It doesn’t matter if we lose.”