CHARLOTTE — The reaction was hard to pin down in the Panthers locker room. It would have been justified if it was satisfaction or even just relief.

With the progress the Panthers have clearly made on offense in the last two weeks, it would have been fair to see silver linings in Sunday's 34-24 loss to the Bengals.

But that's not where the Panthers were. As close as they came, the plays they left on the field were the ones that bothered them, beginning from their first possession.

After driving 68 yards to the Bengals 2, the Panthers were exactly where they wanted to be, geographically and metaphorically. But after Chuba Hubbard ran for 1 of his 104 yards, they didn't gain another inch. A fade route from Andy Dalton to Diontae Johnson fell incomplete, and Hubbard was stacked up twice for no gain on third and fourth downs.

It was a bold call to go there, on the game's first possession when an easy field goal was also justifiable. But it didn't work.

"Loved it, man," right guard Robert Hunt said of coach Dave Canales' decision to go for it there. "But also, that's going to haunt me tonight because I've got to put that on us, you know what I mean? We've got to do a little better there in the red zone, no matter what the circumstances.

"That one going to get me. I hate that."

That being the reaction speaks to the progress the Panthers have made. After averaging 6.5 points, 176 total yards, and 74 rushing yards per game in the first two, those averages are 30 points, 406.0 total yards, and 143.0 rushing yards per game in Weeks 3 and 4.

The arrow clearly points in the correct direction, but you couldn't tell it from looking at the faces of players, including Dalton, who disputed the notion of building momentum as an offense.

"This was an NFL football game; it came down to a couple of plays that made the difference," Dalton said. "And so for us, we're going to go back and look at this tape, and there's going to be things that we're going to say, man, if we had just done that, the outcome could have been different. But I mean, there's no momentum. I felt like we fought, and we just came up short today.

"We're going to go back and look at a couple of opportunities that we would have had that would have kept drives alive or just gain some yardage on early downs, at least offensively. And so, for us, I mean, at least we're putting something out that we know that we can build on, and if we just do a couple of little things better, then maybe it changes the whole outcome of the game."

That's the kind of analysis Canales wants to hear because he preaches the process of it all, the granular instruction rather than sweeping generalities — of looking at the film and absorbing the lessons learned.

So, while he saw it as "another step in the right direction in some areas," he was as bothered as the rest of them by the plays not made.

"The first drive, we've got to finish those in the red zone," Canales said. "You know, we're knocking on the door; we've got to be able to finish that and punch that in right there. It ended up being a huge part of the game, a huge difference in it."

For the guys who have been here for more than four games, the mixed emotions were even more pronounced.

The Panthers are developing a personality in front of our eyes. They're protecting Dalton well — he wasn't sacked Sunday and only twice last week against the Raiders. Chuba Hubbard has topped 100 yards rushing in the last two weeks.

The things offensive lines measure themselves by, the Panthers are succeeding in. And that makes those little mishaps more galling in a way. They've come far enough that seeing themselves come short is more difficult, having seen what's possible.

"We have these growth factors that we're seeing," center Austin Corbett said. "It's just about trust in the process, and that's what we're sticking with. And this is a new team that now we're four games in, we're seeing the growth that we have, and now it's our responsibility to end up in the win column."

Asked which area he was most pleased with, Corbett pointed to something intangible.

"Just the continuity of the team coming together," he said. "Everybody fighting for one another, no matter what happens on the other side of the ball. We're answering, and nobody's hanging their heads; just let it down. There's a fight, there's a determination that we've had recently that we haven't had in years past.

"So this is a new team, but we've just got to change the results for the wins."

Corbett said that begins with "nitpicking" the film on Monday, and there were plenty of things to see.

"You've got to put a magnifying glass on it, and you just got to get down into those fine details, and when you're talking about details, especially up front, you're talking about inches of differences," Corbett said. "And so that's pad level, that's hand placement, foot, placement, everything that you can think of it really just you're on the 1-yard line, we've got to score, and so up front that's on us, we accept all that responsibility there.

"That can never happen again when you're on the 1-yard line; that's a guaranteed score."

In addition to the early stumble at the goal line, the Panthers also dropped far too many passes across the board.

Johnson, Jonathan Mingo, and Xavier Legette each saw balls hit the turf that should have been caught, creating the kind of margins the Panthers were regretting in the aftermath of the loss.

"I mean, regardless of where the ball was thrown, I should have made a play on it," Johnson said of the fade on the first drive.

And when Legette was beating himself up for a drop on the sideline, Johnson (now the veteran of the room with Adam Thielen on injured reserve) was there to counsel him.

Just tell him to keep playing. It happens," Johnson said. "It's just, what's he going to do in that next moment? Which, I know he's going to make that play next time."

And as one of the veterans in this place, one of the ones who knows what it takes to get to the playoffs, Johnson also knows how much each of those individual plays can matter.

"It just boils down to the details, the little things," he said. "Once we finish, we harp on; we get those down . . . the energy is just different.

"I feel like it's a different team because we were down by two (scores), and we came back within a touchdown or something like that. That shows you that we've still got that dog in us, and we're not going to give up until the clock says zero. So we're going to keep building off that."