Panthers looking for answers after allowing franchise-record 59 points to the Bears

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — For the first time in four years, the Carolina Panthers woke up after a season opener not having to worry about a concerning performance from quarterback Bryce Young.

Their defense, now that's a completely another story.

Young threw for 361 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another score, but it wasn't nearly enough to overcome a pathetic showing from the Panthers defense which allowed eight touchdowns and 552 yards in a 57-39 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday.

It was the most points allowed by the Panthers in the 32-year history of the organization.

Caleb Williams was 21 of 29 for 269 yards with two touchdowns while running 10 times for 65 yards and two TDs. D'Andre Swift added 124 yards rushing and three TDs and Kyle Monangai carried 10 times for 100 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown run.

The Bears scored two touchdowns in every quarter and had eight plays of 20 yards or longer.

All of that forced third-year coach Dave Canales to have some hard conversations with his staff about what happened.

Canales said Monday after watching game film the Panthers played hard, but “playing smart — that's where we fell short" referring to the team's 11 penalties, three turnovers and overall mental blunders on assignments.

“As a coaching staff we have to take responsibility of not just putting it on the coaching staff for execution, but what did our plan look like?," Canales said. “Did we have too little? Did we have too much? We have to ask all of those questions so we can get our guys executing at a high level.”

Canales said he still likes defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero's 3-4 scheme and feels good about the personnel the team has on hand, even after injuries to outside linebackers Nic Scourton and Patrick Jones.

“I have seen this scheme work at a high level,” Canales said.

But he said the defense won't work if the players aren't playing together and don't develop a trust in one another and the scheme.

“We have to be really connected on the front seven to make sure a lot of the runs are getting bottlenecked into the alleys,” Canales said.

Any concerns about Chuba Hubbard's hold on the starting job with Jonathon Brooks now healthy were alleviated when Hubbard ran for 49 yards and a touchdown on 10 carries and caught three passes for 38 yards and another score on Sunday. Hubbard looked fast, strong and confident. He played 71% of the team's offensive snaps, while Brooks played 19%.

Brooks worked as a change-of-pace back and ran four times for 14 yards and hauled in 48-yard reception. That big-play catch may earn Brooks more playing time on passing downs moving forward but right now Hubbard is locked in as a primary back.

Williams' ability to get out of the pocket and make plays with his feet might have exposed a major area of concern for the Panthers 3-4 defense — especially when facing mobile QBs moving forward. Time and time again Williams made plays with his arm and his legs after breaking containment. He ran for touchdowns of 29 and 9 yards and also found open receivers outside of the pocket.

Overall, the Panthers allowed 291 yards on the ground — the third-most yards ever — and a franchise-record six touchdowns rushing. Chicago averaged 7.5 yards per carry.

WR Jalen Coker. Coker emerged as Carolina's No. 2 wide receiver alongside AP Offensive Rookie of the Year Tetairoa McMillan late last season and showed why on Sunday. Coker had a huge opening day with eight catches on nine targets for a career-high 138 yards and two touchdowns against mostly man coverage. That comes after Coker caught nine passes for 134 yards and one touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. An undrafted rookie in 2024 from Holy Cross, Coker could be emerging as one of the better wide receivers in the league.

Coker showed up in the locker room on Monday with a boot on his left foot. He said he injured ankle earlier in Sunday's game but played through it. He said the boot is precautionary and that he expects to play in Week 2.

DE Derrick Brown. He's one of Carolina's best defensive players, but Brown had a rough game against the Bears. His late hit on Caleb Williams on a second-and-20 allowed Chicago to keep a drive alive and score the go-ahead touchdown three plays later to make it 38-31. Brown also had a neutral zone infraction in the fourth quarter, nullifying an interception in the end zone by Bobby Brown.

Derrick Brown took accountability afterward for what he called two “bonehead” plays. “I made a lot of mistakes today,” Brown told reporters after the game. “Not normal, won’t happen again, and, as I said, I told these guys in here I’m accountable to each and every single one of them.”

The Panthers came out of the loss relatively unscathed. DT Bobby Brown struggled with back problems and was in and out of the game Sunday and will be evaluated this week.

110.3 — After failing to eclipse a quarterback rating of 50 in his first three season openers, Bryce Young had a respectable 110.3 rating on Sunday giving promise that he may be ready to take the next step.

The good news for the Panthers is that all four NFC South teams lost, so the defending champions didn't lose any ground in the division. They have a chance to rebound when they visit the Falcons on Sunday.

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Carolina Panthers wide receiver Jalen Coker (18) makes a catch during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)

Carolina Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard (30) celebrates after scoring a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Carolina Panthers tight end Darren Waller (88) runs during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

Carolina Panthers head coach Dave Canales embraces quarterback Bryce Young (9) after an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)

Chicago Bears running back D'Andre Swift (4) runs against Carolina Panthers linebacker Jeremiah Moon (56) and inside linebacker Bobby Okereke (58) to score a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco)

NEW YORK (AP) — Artificial-intelligence stocks slid worldwide Monday after leaders of the industry warned a slowdown is needed for the safety of humanity. Another jump in oil prices, meanwhile, briefly sent the yield of the 10-year Treasury to 5% for the bond market ’s latest pressure-raising milestone.

Despite all the downers for Wall Street, gains for many stocks outside AI helped limit the market’s losses. So did a midday tempering of oil prices, and the S&P 500 fell a relatively modest 0.5%. More stocks rose within the index than fell.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 152 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.6% after clawing back most of an early loss of 1.3%.

AI stocks have been under pressure a while because of worries their prices shot too high in the frenzy around the technology. The concerns jumped to another level over the weekend after one of the industry’s leading voices, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, called for a deliberate and global slowdown in the development of AI.

He cited safety issues, including the risk that AI becomes capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet within six to 12 months.

Nvidia, whose profits have soared because its chips are helping to train AI models, sank 3.4% and was the heaviest weight on the market because of its massive size.

SpaceX, which gets a chunk of its business from AI, fell 2% after Elon Musk said over the weekend that he agrees with Amodei. Softbank Group, the Japanese giant that is a major investor of OpenAI, lost 10.7% in Tokyo after OpenAI’s Sam Altman likewise supported the concept of a slowdown.

Altman also said in an interview with Fortune published Saturday that the company behind ChatGPT would likely wait until next year for a sale of its stock on Wall Street. That would delay a potential gusher of cash for Softbank and other early investors in OpenAI.

In South Korea, the Kospi index dropped 3.3% due to losses for its two most influential stocks, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

President Donald Trump played down the need for his administration to check the development of AI, saying he worried about ceding his country’s edge over China in a global competition and that winning would help address the risks from the advancing technology.

Even with many voices inside and outside the AI industry calling for a slowdown to protect humanity, Trump said on his social media network Monday that the only guardrail it needs “is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!”

Helping to limit Wall Street’s losses on Monday were several software companies that tumbled earlier on worries AI-powered competitors would undercut their businesses.

Intuit, the company behind TurboTax and QuickBooks, rose 5.5%. Autodesk, whose software helps designers, climbed 7.8%, and Adobe added 5.3%.

All told, the S&P 500 slipped 37.00 points to 7,619.98. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 152.09 to 54,421.20, and the Nasdaq composite fell 146.62 to 26,186.41.

Oil prices, meanwhile, continued to climb as fighting in the Middle East keeps squeezing the global flow of crude. The price for a barrel of Brent crude rose 1% to $105.68 after getting near $110 in the morning.

An important Saudi oil pipeline will mostly be out of service for weeks following an attack last week, two regional officials told The Associated Press. The pipeline offered a way for Saudi Arabia to shift exports to the Red Sea and avoid the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, where Iranian attacks have stifled the movement of oil tankers.

Brent has jumped from less than $72 in early July as doubts rise that the United States and Iran can come to an agreement that would allow oil tankers to freely exit the Persian Gulf through the strait again.

While the prospect of a de-escalation of war in Iran may have dimmed, ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a commentary on Monday that the situation is still fluid and “sizable” volumes of oil have still been moving through the strait.

So far, the jump in oil prices has sent the average cost of a gallon of regular gasoline across the country to nearly $4.32 from $4.08 a month ago and $3.18 a year ago, according to AAA.

Such upward pressure on inflation has much of Wall Street expecting the Federal Reserve will hike its main interest rate on Wednesday at the end of its next meeting.

Besides high inflation, worries about rising debt for the U.S. and other governments and other concerns have sent longer-term Treasury yields to their highest levels in years.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury briefly breached the 5.00% level during the morning for the first time in nearly three years. That’s up from 4.96% late Friday and just 3.97% before the war with Iran began in February.

But the 10-year yield later pulled back to 4.98% after oil prices came off their highs for the day.

The 10-year yield has not consistently remained above 5% since the turn of the millennium, and its jump has already made it more expensive for U.S. households and companies to borrow. That includes the highest average long-term mortgage rate in more than 14 months.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

FILE - A general view shows the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)

A monitor shows the Nikkei 225 stock index in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (Miyuki Saito/Kyodo News via AP)