Tabor has coordinated NFL special teams since 2011, and Saints special teams coordinator/assistant head coach Darren Rizzi has done the same since 2010. Both have perennially led units that are among the best in the NFL.
“I was looking forward to the matchup,” Jansen said. “Rizzi’s group and Tabor’s group battling blow for blow.”
Jansen said he thought the Panthers “got the better” of the Saints on special teams in the first meeting, even though New Orleans won 20-17 in Charlotte in the second game of the season.
In that game, Hekker and the Saints’ Lou Hedley both punted five times and had two punts downed inside the 20. But Hekker had no touchbacks, Hedley had one, and Hekker averaged 47.8 yards, while Hedley averaged 42.0.
But on Sunday, the one botched punt meant “they got us,” Jansen said.
The special teams touchdown was originally ruled a blocked punt and return, but later in the game it was officially ruled a fumble and a fumble return.
“My assumption,” Jensen said, “is that they’re saying the ball was tipped or touched before it hit Johnny’s foot.”
Tabor wasn’t interested in any distinctions as to whether it was a block or a fumble.
“To me, it’s a blocked punt,” he said. “They scored off of it.”
Regardless of what it’s called, the play dug a deeper hole that Carolina was never able to climb out of, even though the Panthers trailed just 14-6 well into the fourth quarter.
“The defense did an outstanding job of keeping us in it,” Tabor said. “We went into the fourth quarter with an opportunity. We just didn’t get it done.”
The seven points that the punt play provided to the Saints loomed over a game in which the Panthers’ one-two punch of Chuba Hubbard (87 yards) and Miles Sanders (74) led a rushing attack that totaled 204 yards, and the Carolina defense limited Derek Carr to 37 passing yards before wearing down and allowing 82 on two fourth-quarter touchdown drives that provided a misleading final score.
Hekker, who hobbled off the field after being hit by Sewell on the block-turned-fumble and received treatment on his right leg after the game, quipped that he hoped the change to a fumble designation “doesn’t hurt my rushing stats.”
But then he turned serious.
“It’s disappointing on a lot of different levels,” Hekker added. “It cost us a chance in the game.”
A game that left the Panthers 1-12.
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