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CHARLOTTE — Booooooo!

The moribund Panthers, still sleepwalking after an immediate exit from the playoffs a year ago, fell hard to the Philadelphia Eagles 38-10 Sunday on one of the longest days in franchise history.

Jake Delhomme, whose six turnovers led to a loss in last year's playoffs, was worse against the Eagles, throwing four interceptions and fumbling away his job. He left the game in the third quarter, booed off the field by a capacity crowd. They'll be booing more when they hear that he'll get his job back next week.

"I think we'll start back with Jake," befuddled head coach John Fox said afterward. "We've got to go back and evaluate what happened to us."

What happened was the Panthers hit bottom in the first game of the season. Delhomme was replaced by Josh McCown, who played eight downs before being injured, and then No. 3 quarterback Matt Moore came in and ran the turnover total to seven.

"We gave the ball away much more than you can in the National Football League," Fox said. "It doesn't matter who you're playing, where you're playing, when you're playing."

The scenes were familiar at the end. Fans began pouring out of Bank of America Stadium in the third quarter, and the carnage on the field just kept getting worse. The Panthers looked completely unprepared to play an NFL game. Had the Eagles caught all the balls thrown to them by Carolina quarterbacks, they might've scored 60.

"I'd like to think we can't go any further down," fullback Brad Hoover said.

Carolina will travel to Atlanta this week to play the division-rival Falcons and will not return to Bank of America Stadium until Oct. 11, after two road games and the bye week. By then, who knows who will be playing quarterback?

Delhomme looked lost at times. After directing a sputtering touchdown drive to open the game, an 8-minute epic that included wildcat formations, a quarterback keeper, a running clinic by both backs and three penalties, Delhomme suddenly became the guy we saw last January.

That was all his fault. Sunday, he had help.

No team in NFL history blitzes as much as Philadelphia, yet the Panthers appeared to be surprised by it on every play. It didn't help that Carolina ran most of its plays without a fullback and several with an empty backfield.

"You have to give it to Philadelphia," Fox said. "They had a good plan. ... They coached better than us and played better than us."

The questions afterward were pointed, and the answers were telling. Is this team broken? "I don't think we're broken," tight end Jeff King said. Do you guys trust Jake? "Yeah," Smith said. "I mean, I do. I personally trust him." Did this game remind you of the Arizona game? "You know what?" Delhomme said. "It's so easy for me to say no, but it's true."

Delhomme will be the starter next week in Atlanta, but he admitted he didn't know what would happen in the future. When asked if the future Carolina quarterback was even on the roster right now, he said he didn't know.

"The best way I can answer that is I hope not," he said.

He was pulled in the third quarter with the crowd booing angrily, louder than the boos heard last January, louder than maybe anytime since the 1-15 season all those years ago. That team, one of the worst in NFL history, prompted an overhaul of the franchise. This team has 15 more games.

Delhomme has now thrown nine interceptions and fumbled twice in just over six quarters of football. The team extended Delhomme's contract in the offseason, brought back McCown to be a back-up and kept Moore to be an emergency quarterback. Carolina needed all three Sunday and might've lost McCown for the rest of the year with knee and foot injuries.

In the coming days, the Panthers will go searching for replacements. That might mean they bring in someone else to play behind the face of the franchise. And it might mean replacing him for good.

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