It's tough to tell right now if our Oline is simply terrible, or if the Panthers line is just really good and the heat/humidity/travel/start time conspired along with being the first meaningful game to make it a rough start.
But I disagree with some of the sentiment that the hawks have a lot to fix. When your primary goal on offense is to run the ball, and that gets not only hindered but basically destroyed, that derails your entire game plan and everything you've built up for. We were never able to get into any sort of rhythm.
However that completely overlooks the fact that in a tough spot given all the factors above, our defense minus 3 starters (Browner, Clemmons - counting Irvin as a starting LB even though he may not be every-down) and another possible starter in Avril pretty much shut down Carolina and held them to one score. I don't care if it's a TD or a FG, if you go on the road with all of these factors and hold them to one score, you're a good football team with a great defense.
Lets not forget that we were the leading defense in scoring last year. No team in pre-season scored more than 10 points on us. We went on the road and got no running game going and our defense still held the home team to one score. The 49ers haven't scored more than 19 on us in our last 3 meetings, including a pair of 13 point games last season.
We are a different team at home. Kaepernick looked completely shell-shocked the last time he visited Seattle, and it's only going to be even louder for him this year.
Our team will come out ready to play. You know one thing about this team is that they always have a lot to prove. Now they need to prove that they are an elite team, and that last week was just a rough start. We are slow starters on the road, the difference this year is that we found a way to win.
Seahawks 28
49ers 19