CHARLOTTE — Before diving into the Carolina Panthers defensive performance against the Seattle Seahawks, a performance that actually contained multitudes of positive takeaways before ending in a 27-10 loss that will set up a winner-take-all showdown in the NFC South next week, it's important to clarify something: there are no such things as moral victories, on one or both sides of the ball.

"You're right," nodded Derrick Brown. "Ain't no such thing as a moral victory. That's sick trash. We lost."

So, with complete deference to the defensive captain, this will not gloss over the loss in which the Seahawks scored three touchdowns in the second half. But as the Panthers gear up for what is essentially a play-in game next week against Tampa Bay, and then — they hope—a playoff run, lessons from Sunday's Week 17 loss are valuable.

"I just got to talk about our defense and the amazing game they played to give us opportunities offensively," coach Dave Canales said after the loss. "We didn't do anything with those."

For starters, those three touchdowns. They all came on short fields, in which the Seahawks started their drives already in Panthers territory. The first two were a result of turnovers by the Panthers' offense. The third was a turnover on downs with just over two-and-a-half minutes to play, when Carolina had to go for it on fourth down.

All of those drives started inside the 30-yard line.

The drives on which the Seahawks started on their own side of the field, the Panthers defense held them to two field goals, forced two punts, a turnover on downs, a fumble, and an interception.

The interception was a chance for redemption for Mike Jackson, the corner Seattle traded to the Panthers last training camp. He read the Sam Darnold pass for Jaxon Smith-Njigba the entire way into the end zone, pulling in the over-the-shoulder pass for a turnover, and then making sure his former team looked him in the eye.

"They tried the slow ball. I felt it coming," Jackson broke down after the game. "I just went and got it, and it was kind of running all the way down the sidelines, kind of like look at me now, like, you feel me?

"A lot of them people used to laugh at me. I used to come in the building at 5:30 in the morning, and it was just kind of like, now you got to look at me."

Wins and losses come as a team, though, and safety Nick Scott isn't paying attention to where those three scoring drives started, only where they ended.

"Everybody's going to look at how we got down there, but if you want to be a great defensive team, no matter where you start on the field, you've got to at least force them to field goals," said Scott. "So we're looking at ourselves and ourselves only on that because we're very capable of getting stops even with short fields. So we just got to be better in that area."

One area where the group was better was in getting after the quarterback and limiting explosive passing plays. That is an aspect of the Panthers' defensive scheme that had been taken advantage of at times this season, but on Sunday, against the best explosive passing team in the league, Carolina held them to hardly any.

Coming into Week 17, Sam Darnold had a 54.8 percent completion percentage on deep passes (20-plus air yards), the second-highest among qualified quarterbacks.

When throwing deep, Darnold averaged 20.3 yards per attempt, the most by a qualified quarterback this season. He had also thrown for eight touchdowns (tied third-most) on throws over 20 air yards with only one interception.

In Charlotte on Sunday, Darnold, with an offense that includes the top receiver in the league (Smith-Njigba), was held to three explosive passes. They went for 16, 17, and 18 yards respectively. The first two were screens that picked up most of that yardage after the catch. The third was the only pass that went more than 15 yards on air for a completion all day.

It's the kind of performance and response that could pay dividends when facing Mike Evans, Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin, and company again next week.

"That just comes down to communication and people having the correct leverage," explained Scott. "And then playing with a tremendous amount of effort, and then the plays that got out, you can look at one of those three things and say that was the reason why it got out.

Added cornerback Jaycee Horn, "I think we, I think we did a solid job in the first half, limiting them—really all day limiting the explosive pass game.

"But I think we did a solid job. We gave up a little bit in the second half, but you know it is what it is. We didn't get the job done, so we gotta look at the film, get better, and, you know, get ready for next week."

Darnold and his receivers didn't have time to develop a lot of those concepts because the quarterback was under pressure for a decent portion of the day. The Panthers finished with four quarterback hurries and 3.0 sacks, coming from Tre'von Moehrig, Nic Scourton, and D.J. Wonnum.

However, two of those three sacks came in the first half when it was a 3-3 ball game.

"Every single week is a new week, scheme-wise," Brown explained. "Sam's a good quarterback, hitting a lot of his first reads, so I mean, he did a good job today, and unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to get after much in that second half, so I mean, it's one of those things where you've got to keep going."

The two areas where the defense did see the game slip away, at least on their side of the ball, were in the running game and a costly penalty.

Seattle running back Zach Charbonnet finished with 18 carries for 110 yards and two touchdowns. Kenneth Walker added 15 rushes for 51 yards. All total, the Seahawks had five explosive rushes (10-plus yards).

The penalty came on the Seahawks' first drive of the fourth quarter. After a sack and a delay of game forced by the fans at Bank of America Stadium, the Seahawks were facing a third-and-21 from their own 34-yard line. Darnold threw a screen to Smith-Njigba, and Horn forced him out of bounds relatively quickly. It looked like they'd be forced to punt, and the Panthers, only down by seven at that point, would have a chance to tie.

Instead, a flag was thrown, and Jaycee Horn knew immediately what it was.

"When I seen the flag, I knew it was going to be a face mask," he admitted.

He was right. Horn was charged with a face mask on Smith-Njigba that resulted in an extra 15 yards added to the end of the play and an automatic first down.

"I got my hands too high," Horn explained of what happened on the play. "My hands were too high, and as soon as I hit his face mask, I tried to let go, but he kind of sold it a little bit. I felt like I ain't clinch. I ain't seen the replay, but yeah, I saw him sell it, and they caught it.

"A bad play on me. I got to have my hands lower and just get him out of bounds, especially on that down and distance."

The Seahawks finished the drive with a field goal, making it a two-possession game.

Now the Panthers are tasked with one of the biggest challenges in football: beating the same team twice in three weeks. The Bucs and Baker Mayfield have seen their season take a different direction in the second half of the season, but it is still an offense with immense firepower.

As the Panthers turn the page right away, the defense will look at what they did to hold one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL in check as a blueprint.

"We know who we are on defense," said Jackson. "We played good, but we still let some plays get away from us, so it's like, we just got to be consistent. That's a playoff team, and that's kind of how playoff games go, so it's just like we got to be ready to go toe to toe for four quarters."