Panthers up 10-3 early in second

Tampa Bay is on the board, getting a 21-yard field goal after a Panthers' goal-line stand to slice Carolina's lead to 10-3.

The Bucs' march was largely the result of a frozen rope thrown by Josh Freeman to Antonio Bryant, who tapped both toes in-bounds on a 40-yard sideline completion. The play was originally ruled out of bounds, but Tampa Bay coach Raheem Morris challenged the call successfully.

Tampa Bay then ran the ball three times, but Julius Peppers stopped the third-down plunge a yard short. On fourth-and-1 from the 3, Morris decided not to gamble, took the sure "3" and now Carolina is up 10-3 early in the second quarter.

10-0 Panthers early

Matt Moore has now gotten points out of his first two drives for Carolina -- although he left a possible TD pass on the board on the second one.

Carolina leads 10-0 with 4:14 left in the first quarter after John Kasay's short field goal. After a Charles Godfrey interception ended Tampa Bay's first march, the Panthers rode the running of Jonathan Stewart down to the Tampa Bay 5. There, they faced third-and-goal, and Steve Smith beat Elbert Mack one-on-one to the back corner of the end zone.

Moore's pass, however, was overthrown. He seemed so intent on not getting it picked off that he overthrew it.

Still, Carolina got the three, and now leads 10-0.

Nice start for Moore, Panthers

Carolina's Matt Moore led a touchdown drive on his first possession Sunday -- a 10-play, 64-yard march fueled mostly by Jonathan Stewart runs and several crisp, short passes by Moore. The most notable was on a third-and-1, when Moore threw wide for Steve Smith, who made a nice snag to keep the drive alive.

Moore is making his first start since 2007 for Carolina due to Jake Delhomme's broken finger. Carolina leads 7-0 with 9:49 left in the first quarter. Moore was 3-for-3 on the drive for 29 yards.

The Butler did it

I watched Butler's surprisingly easy 38-14 win over Independence Friday night from the sideline at Providence High and came away even more impressed with the Bulldogs. (Providence's awesome replay scoreboard made this easier, since you could see Butler dominate again on the video board after most plays).

In my column for Saturday's paper, I predict that Butler will end the season 15-0 in a week, beating Fayetteville Britt for the state championship on Dec.12. I haven't seen Britt play, but I've seen enough good high school teams to know that this Butler bunch is state-championship caliber and very focused.

Senior H-back Anthony Short caught two long TD passes Friday -- they have nicknamed him "PlayStation" for a reason. QB Christian LeMay was spectacular. But like all great football teams, Butler has a lot of depth. Junior H-back Deion Walker may be the Bulldogs' most underrated player -- he's fantastic, too. If I were kicking the ball deep to Walker and Short, I'd just as soon boot it out of bounds.

Butler was so good Friday night at answering challenges, too. The two times Independence scored TDs, in both cases Butler answered very quickly -- one time it only took 16 seconds (a long kickoff return and then a pass to Short). The other time, after Indy scored on the last play before halftime, Butler just took the second-half kickoff and needed only about 90 seconds to score.

The Bulldogs weren't a bit intimidated by the situation and I can't believe they will be next Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in Raleigh, when playing Britt at N.C. State's home (Carter-Finley Stadium). This is a team that is all grown up and deserves to win a state title. I believe it will.

My Panthers-Bucs prediction

This wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen, but I will be glad to see Matt Moore as the Carolina Panthers’ starting quarterback Sunday.

I’ve been campaigning for Moore to get a chance since Sept.29, when Carolina dropped to 0-3 with a loss to Dallas. For whatever reason, this just isn’t Jake Delhomme’s season.

But John Fox has stuck with Delhomme until a broken finger has forced him to make this change, in large part because he doesn’t trust Moore to make the right decisions. That’s somewhat understandable. But Moore has an arm on him – watch him throw the deep ball today if you’ve forgotten that. He’ll make a lot of mistakes, yes. But so did Delhomme.

-- Moore couldn’t get a better opponent for his first start since 2007 – a 1-10 Bucs team that doesn’t play the run well (30th in the NFL) and that Carolina has already beaten once this season. The Panthers won that first game because they ran the ball for 267 yards. Remember, it was after that one that Steve Smith said: “I am no longer an asset to this team.”

-- Tampa Bay will try to rattle Moore with blitzes and dare him to beat them with any receiver except Smith (whom the Bucs double-covered almost exclusively in the first matchup). He needs to get someone besides Smith very involved early to get some confidence. More than anything, though, he needs to complete a lot of successful handoffs for six-yard gains.

-- I have been trying to swear off picking the Panthers to win another game for the rest of the season, because every time I seem to pick them to win, they lose.

However, I can’t quite break the habit yet. I guarantee that I’m going to pick them to lose each of their final four games, but on Sunday: Carolina 24, Tampa Bay 16.

The stats: I dropped to 6-5 in 2009 picking Panther games last week when Carolina laid an egg against the New York Jets (I had thought the Panthers would win). My prediction record is not much better than the Panthers' 4-7 real record, which is cause for me to again proclaim: Don't ever bet on anything I predict in the sports world.

That's better, Tiger

I was glad to see Tiger Woods opened up a bit today about what he called his "transgressions." It wasn't in the forum I would have chosen had I been advising him (a statement on his website) but at least it made him seem a little more human and a little less "I'm Tiger and I don't have to bother with the little people except to tell them what club I hit and which car to buy."

Tiger's admission comes in the wake of news of a 31-month affair he allegedly had with a Los Angeles cocktail waitress. She apparently kept voice mails, texts, e-mails -- the whole bit.

As I wrote earlier this week in this column, I still think Tiger should face actual questioning from actual reporters. He could "no comment" as necessary, put a more human face on this story and more quickly make it all go away.

But, to be fair to Tiger, putting a statement out like this had to be hard for such a private person, and I commend him for doing that much.

A Panther December to remember?

I wrote a column for Wednesday's Charlotte Observer (find it here) about why December will remain an important month for the Panthers even though they are all but out of the playoff chase.

I projected in the column that Carolina (4-7) would likely need to win all 5 of its remaining games to make the playoffs, and put the odds of that happening at about 100-to-1.

Nevertheless, the games are significant. Men will be playing -- and coaching -- to try and guarantee that they have jobs in 2010.

In the column, I identify four key areas that December will help us understand better: the future of the Panthers' head-coaching and quarterback positions, as well as which eras will end (Muhsin Muhammad? Brad Hoover?) and what the Panthers will do to solve the continuing salary-cap problem of Julius Peppers.