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CHARLOTTE -- The showdown between one of the NFL's best offenses and one of its best defenses turned out to be one of the biggest mismatches of the season when Carolina trounced New Orleans 30-7 Sunday to erase the stain of last week and move on into the long middle of a long NFL season.

An anticipated struggle never developed. An assumed face-off never occurred. The 5-2 Panthers stonewalled the high-powered Saints, holding Drew Brees without a touchdown pass and knocking Reggie Bush from the game.

Fourth-down stops and goal-line stands kept a capacity crowd screaming. And tipped passes, interceptions and forced fumbles kept 73,687 people on their feet until most of them headed home late in the day. They'd seen one of the best games of the season for Carolina and one of the worst for perplexing New Orleans.

An NFC South game that had all the signs of a classic division struggle turned on one play, a tomahawk chop by Julius Peppers that knocked the ball from the arms of Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey with 12:05 left in the first half. Carolina safety Chris Harris fell on the ball at the New Orleans 40, and rookie Jonathan Stewart scored four plays later to put Carolina up 10-7.

The rattled Saints didn't score again. Bush limped off the field at halftime with an injured knee and didn't play again. All the jawing and back-and-forth talk ended. Carolina's players spent the second half piling on points and ridiculing each other.

Steve Smith, who scored two touchdowns and dropped a couple of other passes, chided the Carolina defenders for dropping even more than he did.

"I joke around with them a lot, but the truth is all secondary players are offensive rejects," he said. "They at one point all aspire to be wide receivers or tight ends, and it didn't work out."

Brees threw at least five passes that hit as many as seven or eight Carolina defenders, completing 21 of them to his teammates and only one that ended up in the Panthers' possession. Ken Lucas picked off Brees midway through the third quarter, and Jake Delhomme threw a touchdown pass to DeAngelo Williams six plays later to put Carolina up 27-7.

Coming off last week's desultory loss to division-rival Tampa Bay, the Panthers approached this one like the biggest game of the season. Team owner Jerry Richardson visited the locker room for a pep talk before the game, and Smith talked about everything from football to presidential politics after the game.

Williams said the difference between last week and Sunday was a week of tough practices. John Fox said it was the vagaries of the game.

"That's what this league is about," he said. "Just turn on the TV every week and look at the box scores. That's why it's a popular league. It's hard 16 straight weeks."

Carolina will play Arizona at home next Sunday then have a bye at the halfway point of the season before returning for what appears to be a manageable part of the schedule.

With two games to play against division-rival Atlanta and rematches with both Tampa Bay and New Orleans in the regular-season finale, the Panthers realized the opportunity they had with this stretch of games.

And it started with this one.

"As a football team, coaching staff and players, we were very disappointed with the way we played last week," Fox said of the 27-3 loss to Tampa Bay. "It was a challenge when you have another division team come into your house. They have one of the best quarterbacks in the league. It's a heck of challenge, and I like the way our guys responded."

For players and coaches, the league is what they want to believe it is. Carolina believes at 5-2, it has a chance to make a run now. At 4-3 with two straight division losses, the season would look a lot differently. The late Sam Mills, the only player to be enshrined in the team's hall of honor, always said the biggest difference in the standings was between a 5-2 team and a 4-3 team.

It sounded deep at the time. It sounded about right Sunday, too, as the Panthers celebrated in the locker room afterward, mugging for cameras and crowing in front of several national media outlets in town to cover the division game. New Orleans suddenly finds itself 3-4, and the mood in the Saints' locker room was sullen.

Bush's knee will be scoped in the coming days. Shockey said he believes now he came back from his own hernia injury too soon. Brees said the loss was bad enough, and then it dawned on the team where its next game would be played.

That would be London next week against San Diego.

The long middle of the NFL season started Sunday.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com