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Midway through the third quarter of their Week 10 game against the division rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Carolina Panthers trailed 20-17. They actually appeared to be in pretty good position, though, because Joseph Charlton had just booted a 49-yard punt that was downed at the Bucs' 2-yard line. If the defense could hold Tampa without a first down, Teddy Bridgewater and the offense would get the ball back with good field position and a chance to tie the score or take the lead. 

But that's not what happened. Instead, this happened. 

And that apparently made linebacker Shaq Thompson angry enough that he was still incensed about it after the game, and he lit into his teammates with an expletive-filled rant. Because while that play looks like one where the Panthers got fooled, Thompson actually knew what was coming and told his teammates about it in the huddle. 

"We knew what play they were running," cornerback Rasul Douglas said after the game. "Shaq only screamed it to us 30 times while we were in the huddle."

The Panthers had a play called to have the line slant toward exactly where Ronald Jones ran the ball, only they didn't slant. That let Jones get to the second level, where safety Tre Boston missed a tackle. That led Jones get into the open field, and safety Jeremy Chinn couldn't quite run him down. A few seconds later, Jones was in the end zone, the Panthers were suddenly down double digits, and that was all she wrote. 

Panthers coach Matt Rhule confirmed the specifics of the sequence. 

"We slanted off the right, so we blitzed off the right side. One of our defensive players was supposed to slant with it and didn't run the slant," Rhule said. "Ball hit in that gap. Couldn't get the ball down. Couldn't run him down. We are in a stage right now where we have to do our job and everyone has to be right to be successful and if someone doesn't do their assignment, then you need someone to make a play on it for you and we weren't able to get him down."

Thompson was still fuming about it when the team hit the postgame locker room. 

"I'm not going to curse every other word on the media, but he said some things," Douglas said. "He basically told everybody to look in the mirror. Like the coaches have been preaching all week -- details, leverage, assignment and winning your one-on-ones and none of us did any of that. The whole team, we all did bad. He basically cursed everybody out and said we didn't fight hard enough, we didn't want it more. It's a lot of stuff he said but he basically just told everybody about themselves."

With the loss to Tampa, the Panthers are now 3-7 and in the basement of the NFC South. They've been something of a pleasant surprise this season, but it hasn't turned into quite as many wins as hoped. With Christian McCaffrey again sidelined and Teddy Bridgewater banged up now as well, things could get worse down the stretch. The Panthers, though, are a very young team -- especially on defense. And they've got a good coach in Rhule, plus a bright offensive coordinator in Joe Brady. They've got time to figure things out. It's just that the time it takes is bound to have some disappointments along the way.