CHARLOTTE — It seems reasonable for Andy Dalton and the Panthers offense to feel like they need to be perfect.

But Sunday night, they were not perfect.

Despite some early strides as an offensive group, their small margin of error disappeared in the fourth quarter, when down a score, Dalton threw a pick that allowed the Falcons to push it back to a comfortable gap en route to a 38-20 win.

"For all of us, it's definitely hard when we get into those situations in a one-score game," Panthers head coach Dave Canales said. "And we've just got to finish. There's nothing else to say about it other than that. Just finish on our terms and be able to punch that in and get a two-point opportunity there, and turn it into a game.

"So that's something that we continue to learn how to put a full game together."

Entering the fourth quarter, the Panthers trailed 28-20 and were beginning to roll. They had just held the Falcons to a short field goal, a rare red zone stop.

Five of their first six plays of the final quarter were Chuba Hubbard runs, for a total of 36 yards. With a 12-yard connection from Dalton to Diontae Johnson, the Panthers had moved to the Falcons' 32-yard line with a lot of time and something resembling momentum.

But on second-and-8, Dalton was picked off when Falcons cornerback AJ Terrell slipped inside of tight end Ian Thomas — in hindsight, the play that sealed the game and dropped the Panthers to 1-5.

"I think if I were to let it go a little bit earlier, I think I probably could have had him but, I mean, he (Terrell) made a great play," Dalton said. "I tried to get the ball down the field, and if I could go back and do it again, I would have checked it down and kept that drive going.

"That was a big drive for us and especially with the momentum that we had at that point. You know, that one hurt us and set us back, and that's on me. I've got to make better decisions in that moment."

Likewise, Thomas, the intended target, gave the credit to Terrell: "He's a great football player making a great play."

But as a veteran who has been around here in recent years, Thomas also understands the dichotomy of what's happening. In recent years, the Panthers have struggled offensively, while an acceptable-to-good defense stayed in games as long as they could. This year, it's flipped.

The Panthers were last in the league in points allowed (33.0 per game) entering the week and continued to struggle to get off the field.

"I don't think it's ever like a huge pressure, but I do think we need to do our job, and we need to consistently, and that's one of the biggest things I can talk about," Thomas said. "We just need to be a lot more consistent in what we do. We can't be drive-in and drive-off, especially if we want to be that great team that we always talk about and playing complimentary football.

"If the defense gets the ball away or we get in the short field, we've got to go down and put points on the board."

At the same time, Thomas said that across the room, there was "absolutely" a confidence in Dalton and the offense. From what they showed in the first half, there was plenty of reason for that to be the case.

Dalton was 16-of-22 for 138 yards and two touchdowns in the first half, for a 119.1 passer rating that was indicative of the way they were playing. Included in that was a crisp two-minute drive just before halftime, when the Panthers used their timeouts when the Falcons were in the red zone to give Dalton another chance with the ball before the break, and he then delivered.

He was 5-of-6 for 57 yards passing on that drive and showed the awareness to slip out of the pocket for an 18-yard scramble. He moved the 76 yards in eight plays and just 1:35 of game time.

That's what they feel like they're capable of. So the way it ended stung.

"For sure," Dalton said of that drive. "I mean, I think we've been able to do some good things in two-minute drives this year, and for us, it's an attack mindset.

"We've got to find ways to keep scoring points, and we set ourselves up and put ourselves in a good position to do that in that last drive, and guys were making plays. It's when things are going, going our way, and when we're playing the way we can play, I mean, it shows what we can do."

They also ran the ball well, if not often enough, as Hubbard had his fourth straight 90-plus yard game on just 18 carries (5.1 yards per carry). And on 38 dropbacks, Dalton wasn't sacked, which was a good effort for a new-look offensive line (with a pair of new starters in center Brady Christensen and right tackle Yosh Nijman).

But it wasn't perfect — Dalton's two picks in the fourth quarter underscored that — so it leaves room for improvement.

"The game came down to finish," Canales said. "Down a score right there, you know, we're running the ball really well, and we're throwing an interception on that drive. They turned it around into points right away, and the game got away from us there.

"The message to the team was just consistency. Can we just play consistent football while still working through all the issues that we need to work through? Can we keep taking steps where you come out of a game and you feel like there was balance to what we were doing? We had a better third down (5-of-11, 45 percent, entered the game 28.3 percent for 28th in the league), which allowed us to get into our run game and hit some passes down the field.

"But it's about the finish, and we have to be able to do that."