“Steady” Eddy Piñeiro was not so steady for the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. Nonetheless, his job status seems pretty stable . . . for now.
On Monday afternoon, interim head coach Steve Wilks fielded questions about Week 8’s heartbreaking loss to the Atlanta Falcons—one in which his kicker yanked a pair of potential game-winning scores. But when asked if the team is planning on bringing in competitors to Piñeiro’s post, Wilks shot down the idea—saying they have no plans at the moment to do so.
“Eddy’s still a part of our team—a major part of what we’re trying to get done,” he said. “If you ask Eddy, he definitely wanted to make those kicks, as well as we all wanted him to. One guy did not lose this football game.”
Unfortuantely for Eddy, he had a few chances to win that football game.
The first opportunity came after a miraculous 62-yard touchdown pass from quarterback PJ Walker to wideout DJ Moore, which knotted the game at 34 apiece with 12 seconds left in regulation. Then, after Moore’s controversial unsportsmanlike penalty pushed the extra point try back 15 yards, Piñeiro missed the kick.
The second came with just under six minutes left in overtime, when Piñeiro missed left on a 32-yard field goal attempt. Atlanta would respond with a 55-yard drive to set up an actual game-winner from their kicker Younghoe Koo.
Piñeiro has now converted on 14 of his 16 field goal tries and 12 of his 13 extra points in 2022.
