Jaelan Phillips: Giving up 59 points is embarrassing, creates critical moment for Panthers

Ben Johnson Highlights Jahdae Walker’s Block

Of the 70 offensive plays the Chicago Bears ran Sunday, a workload they turned into eight touchdowns, 552 total yards and 59 points, you might not think the afternoon’s defining moment would have come from a reserve receiver on a play in which he didn’t touch the football. But that’s where Bears coach Ben Johnson’s focus naturally went after a 59-37 road beatdown of the Carolina Panthers. Yes, Kyle Monangai’s 61-yard touchdown burst late in the third quarter — immediately after the defense came up with a critical fourth-down stop — felt like the uppercut to the jaw on the Panthers in what, to that point, had been an offensive slugfest at Bank of America Stadium. But it was Jahdae Walker who thrilled Johnson on that play, out in the open field and sprinting alongside his running back, but with his head turned back to see how else he could help. With three Panthers defenders in hot pursuit, Walker slowed down and stuck his rear end out, cutting off linebacker Princely Umanmielen and making certain Monangai would get the last half of his big run without being touched.

That is the stuff that gets me excited. When I see the little guys blocking, if I see the offensive line getting around the ball and pushing the pile, that's the stuff that gets me going. Said

Just a few minutes later, when quarterback Caleb Williams was asked for his favorite play of an afternoon in which he threw two touchdown passes, ran for two more and connected on four completions of at least 20 yards, he, too, singled out the Monangai run. Williams launched into a homily on the beauty of that sequence, gushing with admiration for not only Walker’s hustle but also for the tenacity of the entire offensive line. I walked over to them after the play and said, 'You all didn't get the view I got,' Williams said. It was pretty sweet. I think that play, specifically, is who we want to be. In a blink, the Bears were suddenly ahead 45-31 and putting the rest of the league on notice of their explosive capabilities. That was a momentum swinger for us, Williams said. That's a crushing thing when you're in that situation (as a defense).

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Dave Canales Reviews the Film After Carolina’s Loss

At the far end of a locker room that had pretty much emptied out Sunday afternoon, Carolina Panthers outside linebacker Jaelan Phillips considered a question about a play in which Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams eluded the Panthers’ pass rush and took off for a long scramble. “Which one?” Phillips said with a little laugh. Take your pick. There were a lot of Bears offensive highlights to sift through after their jarring, 59-37 shellacking of Carolina at Bank of America Stadium, and Panthers coach Dave Canales said he wanted to look through all of them before making any pronouncements after one of the worst defensive performances in team history. It was an incredible day by the Bears, and again, I can’t wait to watch the film so I can get to the heart of what that was, Canales said.

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Canales’ film review will reveal a defense, despite the $165 million spent on free agents Phillips and Devin Lloyd over the winter, getting taken apart by Williams and the Bears’ rushing attack. The Panthers allowed a pair of 100-yard rushers (D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai) and had no solution for Williams, the slippery, dual-threat athlete who accounted for 334 yards (including 65 on the ground) and three touchdowns. Losing in Week 1 is not new for the Panthers, who haven’t won an opener since Sam Darnold beat the New York Jets in 2021. But getting beaten like this was different. The Panthers had scored 10 points in each of three Week 1 defeats since Bryce Young arrived with the No. 1 pick in 2023. But Young was exceptional Sunday, going big play for big play with the quarterback the Bears drafted first overall in 2024 with one of the picks the Panthers traded away for Young.

Young completed 23 of 37 passes for 361 yards and three touchdowns and also ran for a TD while leading Carolina to its second-highest point total with Young behind center. And still, it lost by three touchdowns. The Panthers gave up the most points in a single game in their 32-year-history (they’d twice allowed 52), while surrendering 552 total yards and 291 rushing yards, both the third-highest totals by an opponent.

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Jaelan Phillips Calls the Defensive Performance Embarrassing

The good news for the Panthers was that they put 37 points on the board in their first game of the 2026 season. Sunday’s bad news was that still left them 22 points behind their opposition. The Bears offense tore the Panthers defense apart in a 59-37 win that went down as the highest-scoring Week 1 game in the history of the NFL. After the game, linebacker Jaelan Phillips was asked if he found himself looking at the scoreboard trying to make sense of what he saw. Many times, yeah, especially towards the end, Phillips said, via the team’s website. “I mean, 59 is an ugly, ugly score to put up as a defense, so it’s embarrassing. But at the end of the day, you know, I do think that it’s a good opportunity for us. It’s a critical moment in the sense that, you know, getting beat this badly as a defense is really going to define us moving forward in terms of the urgency that we have to make corrections and to get better, so you know it’s all good, man.”

The Panthers gave up the most points in league history during the 2024 season, but stuck with defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and improved last year. Bringing in Phillips and linebacker Devin Lloyd was designed to continue that improvement. Sunday was a major step back and head coach Dave Canales said in his press conference that the team needs to find solutions for what’s going on because more of the same is going to make for a long, ugly season for Carolina.