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Panthers' Sam Darnold, Robby Anderson sting their old Jets team with TD bomb

Sam Darnold got his revenge game and didn't let the opportunity slip away.

The Carolina Panthers' new quarterback wasn't perfect in his first game against his former New York Jets club, but it was enough to bring home a 19-14 win.

Darnold got beat up early, losing a fumble at the Jets' 8-yard line and taking four first-half sacks. But Darnold was able to sting his old team late in the second quarter, lacing a 57-yard bomb to none other than Robby Anderson, another player who survived his Jets tenure to thrive elsewhere.

That touchdown gave the Jets a 9-0 lead, with new Panthers kicker Ryan Santoso botching the extra-point try. It came after the Panthers stuffed the Jets on a fourth-and-1 the possession before.

Darnold finished the game 20 of 37 passing for 258 yards with two TDs, one INT and one rushing score.

Darnold and Anderson were a pretty decent pair in New York, connecting for 88 passes for 1,353 yards and 11 TDs over the course of the 2018 and 2019 seasons, despite Darnold missing six games in that span (and Anderson missing two).

Anderson finished with just that one catch on three targets.

But Darnold also did some work on his own later in the first half. After Jets QB Zach Wilson was sacked for a big loss, they punted back to Carolina and Darnold made them pay. He completed all five passes on the final Carolina drive of the half and capped it with a 5-yard TD run.

Darnold completed 17 of 22 passes for 234 yards with two TDs — one each running and passing. In his 38 starts with the Jets, Darnold surpassed 234 yards for the game in only 11 of them. It was 16-0, Panthers, at the half.

Wilson struggled early but got on the board with his first NFL TD pass late in the third quarter, hitting Corey Davis for a 22-yard strike after escaping pressure. The bad news for the Jets: Left tackle Mekhi Becton was injured on the play. His status is unknown, but he was carted off into the locker room.

Wilson then kept it himself for the two-point conversion, cutting the Panthers' lead in half at 16-8. The battle of former and current Jets QBs got a bit more interesting, as Wilson led another TD drive, but it wasn't quite enough.