CHARLOTTE -- Quotes from Panthers head coach John Fox's weekly day-after-game press conference:
Just to update you on injuries: 
ON WHETHER LEONARD'S INJURY IS SEASON-ENDING: Again, they're still evaluating that, so we'll keep you posted. We've got no new update at this point.
ON WHETHER THE TEAM MUST MAKE A MOVE BECAUSE IT HAS ONLY TWO HEALTHY DEFENSIVE TACKLES: Well, we'll evaluate that. We do have
ON WHETHER HAYDEN WOULD PLAY NEXT MONDAY: Again, I can't update you on injuries until Thursday, which will be the equivalent of a usual Wednesday (because a Monday night game pushes back the preparation schedule).
SO THERE IS NO PROGNOSIS ON LEONARD'S RECOVERY TIME? No.
MORE ON LEONARD'S INJURY: He got hurt on the very last defensive (snap) we played. I thought he played very well in the game, and I think he would have just continued to get better.
ON THE INJURIES COLLECTING: It varies year-to-year. There's no question that injuries have been problematic. They were through preseason and they've continued into the regular season. It happens to different teams at different times.
ON THE OFFICIALS' RULING THAT THE GAME CLOCK STARTED ON THE 'READY' SIGNAL AFTER LEONARD'S INJURY, WITH THE PANTHERS OUT OF TIMEOUTS: What happens is that they actually charge you with a fourth timeout. The penalty for that is not a 10-second runoff, but in that case was a little bit worse -- that if the clock has to stop due to injury and you don't have a timeout, they ran it down to (41) seconds, until the 40 seconds (on the play clock) ran out. So that's really what happened. The reason they do that is so people can't fake injuries; obviously this was not a fake.
ON THE MAGNITUDE OF THE COWBOYS GAME WITH THE PANTHERS 0-2: Well, they're all big. We can't change what's happened to us the last two (weeks). I think it will take all our focus. It's a tough opponent on their turf, but I think we're capable of the challenge.
ON WHEN THE DEFENSE SHOULD KNOW ITS NEW SCHEME TO WHERE IT HAS CONFIDENCE IN IT: Well, as I told the team today, I think we got set back a little bit. A lot of those guys that you're talking about didn't play in the preseason, so that doesn't do much good as far as getting out and executing something that's new. I don't know that we're on target. I think we played well enough yesterday to give us a chance to win; we didn't play well enough to win. So now we've got to cross that bridge as a football team.
ON WHETHER THE TRANSITION TO A NEW DEFENSE HAS BEEN BUMPIER THAN EXPECTED: No. To be honest with you, coming out of the preseason -- when you have as many starters as we had miss playing football in the preseason -- it was a concern. I'm talking offense, defense and even as it relates to special teams.
ON THE PASS RUSH ONLY HAVING TWO SACKS IN TWO WEEKS: Well, I evaluate one game at a time. I thought (Sunday) we probably could have done a better job of affecting the quarterback. They went into the game trying to spit the ball out quickly, and I think they executed it pretty well. There's definitely some things -- in particular on third down -- that we could have executed better. That's how I saw the game going. It was an eight-point game. They had four trips (inside the opponent's 25-yard-line) where they scored four touchdowns and we had (four) trips where we scored two touchdowns. That's an eight-point swing, and that can be the difference. There's a lot of things that could have happened for us to win the game, and we didn't get it done.
ON HIS CONFIDENCE IN WHETHER THE LINE CAN GENERATE ENOUGH PASS RUSH WITH ITS CURRENT COMPLEMENT OF PLAYERS: Yeah. We've got what we've got. They're capable guys that should continue to improve. We've got quite a few new people there, not even regarding learning a new defense.
ON HIS EVALUATION OF JULIUS PEPPERS' PLAY: Like I did our team's - good but not quite good enough.
ON IF THE FALCONS DID ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR ON PEPPERS, OR THEY JUST GOT THE FOOTBALL OUT QUICKLY: Both. He draws some attention. They've got chips. There are protection sets to him quite a bit. (Falcons defensive end) John Abraham is a pretty good player, and I'm not sure how many sacks (none) he had yesterday. The difference was their team won.
ON WHAT PEPPERS DID WELL: He executed well enough for us to be in position to win. The reality is we didn't, but I don't know that it is Julius' fault.
ON WHETHER CRITICISM OF PEPPERS, BASED ON HIS CONTRACT, IS UNFAIR: People have to draw their own conclusions. We are 0-2. I understand the criticism, not just of Julius but our team. As I said last week when everybody wanted to blame Jake (Delhomme) to this week when everybody wants to blame Julius, I don't think that's the answer.
ON WHAT CAN BE DONE TO COUNTER TEAMS THAT GET THE FOOTBALL AWAY QUICKLY: You should be able to react to the ball fast as far as the pass route. At times we did that well and at times we didn't do it as well as we needed to. It's usually not one phase or it's not one person that wins and loses football games.
ON THE FAILED FIRST-QUARTER FLEA FLICKER: They had a good defense on. They were bringing the Sam Mike backer, and it was a good defense on at that particular time. That's football.
ON WHETHER THAT PLAY CHANGED THE MOMENTUM OF THE GAME: That play - not really. I thought the punt after it did.
ON THE BLOCKED PUNT: We were a little slow getting rid of the ball and we didn't protect very well. Their guy beat our guy.
ON WHETHER BEING SLOW GETTING RID OF THE BALL IS A PUNTER OR SNAPPER ISSUE: It wasn't the snapper. I thought we were a little slow getting the ball away.
ON WHETHER PUNTER JASON BAKER ROTATED THE FOOTBALL MORE THAN NORMAL PRIOR TO THE PUNT BLOCK: Again, the reality is we missed the block, and that happens.
ON WHETHER SPECIAL TEAMS ARE A CONCERN: Yeah. It goes back to learning a new defense. You've got to execute. A couple of times as far as our kickoff coverage we didn't execute as well as we needed to. They were able to get it out to our 39. I think another time, to start the third quarter, out to our 41. Again, it's a combination of things - the kick, the coverage - and we didn't execute as well as they did.
ON WHETHER SPECIAL-TEAMS PROBLEMS ARE BECAUSE OF HAVING SO MANY NEW PLAYERS OUT THERE: It is what it is. I'm not going to sit here and try to make excuses, but the reality is yes.
ON WHETHER MIKE GOODSON SHOULD HAVE RETURNED THE LAST KICKOFF RATHER THAN TAKING A KNEE: No. He made good decisions. That was one of the things I thought we did well - both punt returns (and kickoff returns). We had good ball security and made good decisions.
ON THE BRIGHT SPOTS OF SUNDAY'S GAME: I thought Jake played very well. I thought we ran the ball efficiently. I thought our third-down conversion offensively was outstanding. I thought our kicker was 100 percent - two field goals. We had an interception to put the ball at midfield.
ON WHETHER THERE IS MORE OF A SENSE OF URGENCY FOR NEXT MONDAY'S GAME: I think there is a sense of urgency every week. There are only 16 of these and they are all important.
