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CHARLOTTE -- Jake Delhomme said he sometimes wants to know exactly what Steve Smith is thinking. And sometimes, he'd just as soon not. Sunday was one of those days.

Staked to a 14-point deficit in front of a church crowd, the Panthers shook down the heavens with a lot of bleeps and expletives and the star-power of their best player. A week of practice that resembled training camp and a halftime that went about the way you'd imagine NFL halftimes go, stoked the emotions of Smith and his teammates who dragged down Arizona to win 27-23 heading into the open week.

Smith scored two improbable touchdowns, diving weightlessly through the air on one and risking turning into a pillar of salt on the other, to lift the Panthers to a 6-2 record halfway through the regular season.

He said all the cussing and ranting and raving from coaches and teammates finally sunk in when the Panthers found themselves down 14 in the second half. Suddenly, it all became clear.

"This week coach Fox and the offensive line coach and the offensive coordinator and the receivers coach were on us like we were 2-5," Smith said. "We're kind of beat up because in practice they were riding us a lot. I hate to say it, but obviously coach knows best. This was a grind game that went to a shootout."

Smith broke free late in the third quarter, possibly after pushing himself free from a defender, then risked looking back as he ran into the end zone waiting to be flagged for his transgression. Somehow, retribution never came.

Later in the third, with both teams throwing haymakers, Smith made a play with the help of divine intervention, spinning out of the grasp of two tacklers and stepping into the one spot the replay cameras couldn't see to break away for a 65-yard touchdown play that finally subdued the Cardinals.

"I knew I was close to the sideline," he explained. "That's why I swung one leg around, which is the leg obviously that was close to out of bounds."

Or clearly out of bounds to the Cardinals standing inches away and to most every person who witnessed it or saw it on the crude replays. Somehow, the NFL replay showed no such boundary.

Smith suggested he wasn't thinking of making a great play or making the deciding play in an exciting football game or even scoring a 65-yard touchdown. He was just tired of being cussed.

"There were a lot of bleeps in there," he said of the scorching halftime discussions that were an extension of the brutal practices the coaches had pushed the offense through last week. "I didn't have any bleeps. I didn't say much, I just replenished my body and listened."

Smith caught five passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns in one of his most productive days ever. He opened up the offense so DeAngelo Williams and Muhsin Muhammad and even Dwayne Jarrett could get the coaches off their backs, too. And he made Delhomme look good, which the quarterback appreciated more than anything after a long week in which he, too, took his share of abuse from the coaches.

"We've been getting after it a little bit," Delhomme said. "We got after it last week before New Orleans, and I think we respond that way for some reason."

He doesn't understand it all, really. He doesn't want to. He said once it became apparent that Arizona was going to score a lot of points it became paramount to get the ball to Smith. After the first touchdown pass, he knew something had happened that he couldn't see.

"I just threw it to a spot and let Steve outrun it," he said. "I don't know what he was thinking. I don't ask sometimes."

The 6-2 Panthers now head into an open week in the schedule, one that will allow the players to heal with the cheers still in their ears from the win over Arizona and the thundering in their ears from a coaching staff that wouldn't let the team coast into the bye week.

Smith finally began to understand what all the yelling was about, grudgingly admitted that the coaches were right and realized it was time to make something happen. There were those who believed he had some help Sunday, if not from above the stadium then from somewhere higher than the playing field.

Some 72,000 fans were doing the wave while the Panthers were on offense, and though that was a lot better than in the first half when much of the quiet crowd hadn't even arrived yet, Smith felt like it was time to do something himself.

The best players have that ability. The best players get the calls. The best players win football games.

The best player for the Carolina Panthers gets yelled at just as much as anyone else, though. And he and his teammates are learning to do something about it.

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