Cards better on road, but still fall to Panthers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The East is where Western teams go to die on Sunday mornings.

The Cardinals challenged this truism this season — Western teams still are looking for a win in the East in early games — but ultimately didn’t kill it.

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They ran up an impressive 17-3 lead midway through the final quarter here Sunday over the Carolina Panthers.

But then they turned the ball over twice, setting up 10 Panther points and a disappointing 27-23 loss.

The Cardinals (4-3), though, at times didn’t sound much like a team that lost after the game.

“It might be the best road game we’ve played since I’ve been here,” said quarterback Kurt Warner, who is in his fourth year with the team.

“I’m at least exited about that.

“What will stick with me the most is how we came out and played on the road.

“I hate to lose. No moral victories. But we played with an intensity against a good team (on the road) that I haven’t seen since I’ve been here.

“If we can bottle this up and take it on the road, we’ll win some games.”

Defensive tackle Darnell Dockett said, “To go on the road, start fast … We even had their crowd booing them. …

“There are a lot of positive things to come out of this game.

“Everybody wants to win. But we actually got accomplished on the road … competing with a damn good football team. Carolina is definitely one of the top teams.

“We have to build off it. It’s not the end of the world.

“Think positive.”

The Cardinals could have done even more than this had Edgerrin James not lost a fumble and the Panthers (6-2) hadn’t intercepted a Warner pass.

James’ fumble set up an 18-yard touchdown pass (on a one-play drive) from Jake Delhomme to Steve Smith to tie the score, 17-17, in the third quarter.

With the Cardinals trailing, 24-23, but driving inside the Carolina 20-yard line, a Warner pass to J.J. Arrington bounced off the running back and was intercepted. That set up John Kasay’s 50-yard field goal to finish the scoring.

Warner said he’d changed plays at the line of scrimmage in the team’s no-huddle format and apparently didn’t communicate the pass route clearly enough to Arrington, who ran in a different direction than Warner had expected.

Afterward, Warner wished he had just pulled the ball back because, “We weren’t on the same page.

“That’s the difference when you’re playing a good team.

“That was unfortunate. We were moving the ball and getting the momentum back on our side. And we gave it back to them.”

“We just miscommunicated … Two routes that sounded the same. He heard something different. He ran the one I wasn’t thinking of. Unfortunately, it cost us.”

To the Panthers’ credit, they suddenly found holes in a Cardinals’ defense that had shut them down almost completely in the first half.

Down 17-3, they woke a sleepy crowd with an 80-yard touchdown march in the third quarter.

“We needed to get that crowd back in the game,” Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme said.

From the Cardinals’ perspective, they missed way too many tackles in the second half.

“I was just disappointed we didn’t tackle better,” coach Ken Whisenhunt said.

On offense, the Cardinals used a four-wide receiver set effectively, as Warner hit eight receivers and ran up 381 yards passing.

But the Cardinals did little on the ground.

Other than a 30-yard end-around by Anquan Boldin early in the game, they had only 20 yards rushing.