Bad teams, but with a difference: Carolina surprised at shaky start

The cost-cutting 49ers had a feeling this season could be rough.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Though there's half a season to play, the Carolina Panthers and the San Francisco 49ers could use a few months off.
Their best players are injured, their egos are bruised, their fans are embarrassed -- and they're both on pace for the worst seasons in their franchises' history. But when they meet Sunday, one woebegone 1-7 team can catch its second win.
Though there are many similarities in these clubs' horror stories, there's one big difference: The Panthers had no idea they would be this bad, while the cost-cutting 49ers definitely suspected it.
Just 10 months after winning the NFC title, Carolina will need a .500 finish just to avoid the worst record of any team coming off a Super Bowl appearance. Though injuries to starters and depth players alike have hindered them, most of the Panthers declined to make excuses as they evaluated this disastrous midseason.
Mistakes uncharacteristic
"We're doing stuff that we didn't do in the past," said Panthers defensive tackle Brentson Buckner, who played three seasons in San Francisco. "We've been making a lot of mental mistakes. We make a lot of technique errors, stuff that we can control.
"That's the most disheartening thing about it, because we pride ourselves on being a hard-nosed, technique-sound, smart football team, but we're doing a lot of dumb stuff that's hurting us now."
Nearly the same things could be said about the 49ers, who are beset by injuries and inexperience at many positions on a roster that lost much of its depth and veteran leadership to budget-crunching and bad personnel decisions even before coach Dennis Erickson's second season began.
For the Panthers, the constant losing is still an unpleasant novelty to the players who weren't around for the club's 1-15 season in 2001. But it's becoming endemic for the 49ers, who lost all four preseason games and got their only victory in overtime with a frantic comeback against Arizona.
"I came here when we were still an elite team that everyone wanted to come to," said fullback Fred Beasley, who criticized his younger teammates last week for a lack of professionalism. "Now, everything has changed, and we have a whole new crop of coaches and front office people. It's just very strange."
In addition to injuries, there are more similarities to the clubs' slides. They've both failed at the game's most basic components: running the ball and stopping the run.
Quarterbacks steady
But both teams are getting decent play from their quarterbacks. Coach John Fox said Delhomme had his best game of the season in last week's loss to Oakland, while Tim Rattay has thrown the ball crisply despite a sore right forearm that's caused him to miss three games.
"There's no reason not to go out and give 100 percent, no matter what the record is," Rattay said. "There's too much work put in, and only 16 opportunities. We've got to focus on the games ahead of us, not the games behind us."
But both the Panthers and the 49ers have lost so many games this season their anger and disappointment is down to a slow burn. They know a playoff berth would be almost impossible to earn, and the remaining players are auditioning for clubs sure to make major off-season changes.
But there's still half a season to go -- and Sunday, one team's win total will double.
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