CHARLOTTE — There have been times in the arc of the recent history of the Panthers when the results of games weren't this disappointing.

Sunday, a 26-23 overtime loss to the Buccaneers was crushing, and that, as much as anything, may show how far this team has come in the first 12 games of the Dave Canales era.

Instead of losing because that's the expected result, they're losing for very specific and tangible reasons. Things they can measure and touch. And because they can identify and name them, they hurt more.

"I mean, I'm not big on comparing, not big on looking back. But I'm a competitor. We all are. It's not a fun place to be," quarterback Bryce Young said after what was his best game of the season, a week after his previous best game of the season. "You know, it definitely, definitely hurts. Right now we're, we're all in the moment. Tomorrow, we just have to look at it, just as we would regardless of the result, figure out what we can build and continue to do, and then figure out what we can learn from and correct.

"Obviously, right now, it sucks."

That was the consensus in a downcast locker room because they know all the things that should have happened differently for the result to change.

There were two missed field goals by Eddy Piñeiro. A late and uncharacteristic fumble by Chuba Hubbard. A run defense that's struggled allowed the Bucs to go for 236 on the ground. The Panthers were 1-of-4 scoring touchdowns in the red zone, settling for field goals too often in a game in which any one point would have made a huge difference.

There are things they'll try to fix tomorrow, but those are things they know tonight, which is why there weren't the tinges of excitement around the edges the way there were last week after the loss to the Chiefs.

Canales' message was the same, but the response was obviously different.

"The story of the day, just we've got to control the things that we can control, we've got to make our kicks, we've got to take care of the ball at the end right there. We're in a field goal position right there to be able to win the game in overtime and just the execution, all across the board.

"There's some good football in there, and there's some bad football, and we've got to continue to attack it, But it's just the things that we gave away."

That's the painful part. A week ago, you could look at Patrick Mahomes leading a game-winning drive, shrug, and say, "That's Patrick Mahomes." This week, they know the reason was them.

"These ones, these hurt," right guard Robert Hunt said. "So it's a tough one, man. Let a team get off the hook. Obviously, I thought we were the better team tonight, but you know, you if ain't capitalizing in this league, you lose. ...

"Obviously, we had plenty of chances to win a game. I think we just beat ourselves. It sucks because we're trying to do something special, and we're not there yet. We've got to learn to win games like this. And once we learn how to win games like this, it'll be a different outcome, you know, we'll feel a lot better."

Of course, that takes time and people, and when you haven't had a winning season since 2017, there's not a lot of context from which to draw. But they are getting closer, and as they continue to move a step closer to that place, it becomes tougher for them to accept not reaching it.

Veteran wideout Adam Thielen is one of the old heads around here, a guy who has seen teams rise and fall. So he was asked the simple next question to the constant assertion that they needed to learn to win.

How do you learn to win?

"You keep playing," he replied. "You keep getting experience as a team together, same staff, a lot of the same players and you just keep figuring out how you can get better, right? Can we do better in the red zone? Can we do better getting stops? It's just complimentary football, right?

"I feel like we've done a really good job the last few weeks of playing complementary football, which we haven't done the majority of the season. So that's a good step in the right direction. But again, you just got to do that in crunch time as well."

Again, the signs are there. Young threw for 298 yards and a touchdown, and ran for another one. He was only sacked once. No one asked Dave Canales afterward if he'd start next week since it seems like it doesn't need to be asked for a bit.

"No, I don't think so," Thielen said with a laugh.

Throw in Thielen's eight catches for 99 yards and their four sacks on Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield — they now have nine in the last two weeks, after 12 in the first 10 — and the signs of progress are clearly there.

And because they can see them and are getting a sense of where they're heading, seeing the other team celebrate in their building hurt even more.