Carolina Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard runs during the first half of an NFL football game between the Carolina Panthers and the Detroit Lions on Saturday, in Charlotte, N.C.
AP Photo
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — D’Onta Foreman ran for a career-high 165 yards and a touchdown, Chuba Hubbard added 125 yards rushing and the Carolina Panthers racked up a franchise record 320 yards on the ground to beat the Detroit Lions 37-23 on Saturday and keep their NFC South title hopes alive.
Sam Darnold completed 15 of 22 passes for 250 yards and a touchdown and ran for a score to improve to 3-1 as Carolina’s starting QB. Raheem Blackshear and D.J. Moore also scored for the Panthers, who amassed a team-record 570 yards of offense in the coldest game ever played at Bank of America Stadium.
The Panthers had seven runs of longer than 20 yards against a Lions defense that had allowed just 84 yards rushing per game over the last five weeks. Foreman and Hubbard both exceeded 100 yards rushing in the first half as the Panthers built a 24-7 lead.
Carolina (6-9) can clinch its first division title since 2015 with wins at Tampa Bay and New Orleans.
Jared Goff threw three touchdown passes to third-string tight end Shane Zylstra for the Lions. Detroit (7-8) had won six of its previous seven games to pull within a half-game of Washington in the race for the NFC’s final wild card spot entering the weekend.
The temperature was 20 degrees at kickoff with a wind chill of 9, and the Panthers made it clear they were going to pound the ball against the Lions after being held to 21 yards rushing in last week’s loss to Pittsburgh.
The Panthers ran five times for 85 yards on their opening possession and took a 7-0 lead with Blackshear scoring on a 7-yard run. Hubbard, who got the start over Foreman, carried three times for 70 yards on the drive.
The Lions countered with a 3-yard TD pass from Goff to Zylstra. The Panthers then scored 17 straight points to close the half by repeatedly running through gaping holes.
Darnold scored on a 3-yard quarterback keeper and Foreman added a 4-yard TD run to make it 21-7.
With 59 seconds left in the half and leading by 14, the Panthers refused to take a knee and go to the locker room, instead using the running game to go 68 yards in less than a minute to set up the first of Eddy Pineiro’s three field goals.
Carolina had 364 yards by halftime, a first-half franchise record.
CHIEFS 24, SEAHAWKS 10
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw two touchdown passes and ran for a score, Kansas City shut down Geno Smith and Seattle’s slumping offense and the Chiefs rolled to a 24-10 victory over the Seahawks on Saturday.
Travis Kelce had six catches for 113 yards, and Kadarius Toney and Jerick McKinnon had touchdown catches as the AFC West champion Chiefs (12-3) remained tied with Buffalo for the conference’s best record with two games to go.
The Chiefs stopped the Seahawks (7-8) twice on fourth down, picked off their Pro Bowl quarterback in the end zone and dealt coach Pete Carroll’s team their fifth loss in six games along with a near-knockout blow to their playoff hopes.
Kenneth Walker III was the biggest bright spot for Seattle, running for 107 yards but failing to reach the end zone.
Kansas City has won 16 consecutive regular-season games against NFC opponents.
Much like the rest of the country, the cold weather that flooded the Midwest produced some frigid temperatures — the wind chill was minus-2 at kickoff, and that was an improvement over the previous two days. In fact, it had been so cold the tarp was frozen to the field when workers tried to remove it three hours before kickoff.
That didn’t bother a half-dozen Seahawks, including DK Metcalf and his fellow wide receivers, who walked out of the tunnel bare-chested shortly afterward for their pregame warmups on the ice-covered field.
Maybe they weren’t cold, but Seattle’s offense was downright frigid.
Playing without wide receiver Tyler Lockett, who had surgery on his broken hand this week, Smith and Co. gained just 18 yards on their first 15 plays, and they were forced to punt on their first five possessions.
The Chiefs took advantage of the slow start, too. Mahomes threw a pop pass to Toney to cap a 63-yard TD drive, then a pass to McKinnon out of the backfield a few minutes later for another score. And by the time Harrison Butker drilled a 47-yard field goal late in the half, the Chiefs had jumped out to a 17-0 lead.
Even when Seattle got a field goal before halftime, much of the drive was aided by defensive penalties.
While the Chiefs struggled to extend their lead in the second half, the Seahawks were incapable of trimming it.
They failed on fourth down at the Kansas City 34 when tight end Colby Parkinson was stood up after a catch; failed on fourth down again when Laquon Treadwell failed to run his route to the first-down marker and came up short; and failed to score at the Kansas City 22 when Smith overthrew Treadwell and was picked off by Juan Thornhill in the end zone.
The Chiefs, who have been maligned for failing to put struggling teams away, finally did it on the ensuing possession, when Mahomes hit Kelce with two long throws before sprinting to the pylon for the clinching touchdown.
RAVENS 17, FALCONS 9
BALTIMORE (AP) — Tyler Huntley threw a first-half touchdown pass, and the Baltimore defense kept the Atlanta Falcons out of the end zone in a 17-9 victory Saturday that ended up assuring a playoff spot for the Ravens.
About a half-hour after Baltimore (10-5) took care of the Falcons, New England lost to Cincinnati to put the Ravens in the playoffs. The Ravens won for the second time in three games without quarterback Lamar Jackson, who has been out with a knee injury.
Gus Edwards ran for 99 yards and J.K. Dobbins rushed for 59 for Baltimore. Huntley’s 6-yard touchdown pass to Demarcus Robinson in the second quarter was the first TD catch by a Ravens wide receiver since Week 3.
Huntley ran for a 2-point conversion that put the Ravens up 14-0 — and Baltimore’s defense has allowed more than 14 points in a game just once since the start of November.
Atlanta (5-10), which entered just a game behind first-place Tampa Bay in the NFC South, has lost four straight — including rookie QB Desmond Ridder’s first two starts — and six of seven.
The temperature at kickoff was 17 degrees, the lowest for a home game in franchise history. Although both teams were expected to rely on the run instead of their shaky passing games, Huntley did connect with Sammy Watkins for 40 yards and Mark Andrews for 36. Those two drives both ended in field goals, and the Ravens led 6-0.
Atlanta (5-10) went for it on fourth down near midfield, and Ridder found Drake London for a gain of 20. But London fumbled at the end of that play, and the Ravens took over at their own 30.
Baltimore then ran the ball on the first 11 plays of the ensuing drive, which ended with Huntley’s short touchdown pass.
The Ravens caught a break near the end of the first half. On first-and-goal from the 1, Ridder was called for intentional grounding — it appeared he was hit as he threw — for a loss of 13. The Falcons settled for a field goal.
On the first possession of the second half, a holding call on receiver Olamide Zaccheaus nullified a touchdown by Cordarrelle Patterson, and Atlanta kicked a field goal again.
Down 17-6 in the fourth, the Falcons had first-and-goal from the 4, but four straight runs were stopped short of the end zone. Tyler Allgeier was unable to convert on fourth down from the 1.
Atlanta pulled within eight on a field goal with 2:03 remaining, but the Falcons had let so much time run off that the kickoff brought the clock down to the two-minute warning. Atlanta did have two timeouts remaining, but the Ravens were able to get a first down and seal the win.
