CHARLOTTE -- We know John Fox isn't a doctor or a statistician.

But the Carolina Panthers coach better have a little electrician in him, because now's the time for his team to throw the switch and start playing again.

Yes, we've heard their entreaties, both the Raiders and the Lions played better than their record indicates. Still, you don't fall off a curb and end up 2-18, so the bottom line is it's getting harder, and soon.

In fact, it's getting much harder right now.

The Panthers are catching Atlanta after its first home loss of the year, a fact which will gall a young team that seemed to be kind of digging its status as the surprise of the NFL. Just as the Lions' record is what it is for a reason, the Falcons are 6-4 because they can actually do things well on both sides of the ball. They can run, and they can pressure the passer. Sound familiar? It should, because that's the basic plan the Panthers have ridden since Fox walked in the door.

That means the Panthers are going to have to be far better than they've been.

In fact, the Panthers have looked downright bad, particularly on offense, since their near-perfect game against Arizona.

The bye week might have rested their bodies, but it took what was looking like a hot offense and threw it in the deep freeze. Quarterback Jake Delhomme was awful the following game and merely average the next. Luckily, against Detroit, turning around and handing it off was enough.

It won't be this week.

Atlanta's talented enough to cause problems and young enough to not know they're not supposed to be in this thing.

If the Panthers continue sleepwalking the way they have the last two, they're going to be 8-3 in a few days.

Fox spent the last two weeks beating into his team's collective head that they could lose either of those games, that Oakland and Detroit were so dangerous you couldn't look past them.

Then, instead of playing sharp football, they played some of their worst, aggressively pursuing losses in both games, before their opponents finally yielded to reality.

In fact, if you could somehow move Oakland's defense to Detroit, to put it together with a not-bad Lions offense, the Panthers likely lose both games because they played in a manner which deserved no reward.

Yes, John, we get it. The margin is slim every week. Everybody has players, blah, blah, blah.

The reality is good teams have to play well to go along with their talent, and the Panthers haven't been lately. They were fortunate to find an offense more inept than their own in Oakland, and a defense here against Detroit that was already bad, then hurt. If the slop is out of their system now, they should be fine.

Again, the reality is, they pushed through and sit at 8-2, the third-best record in the league. They're not playing the third-best football right now, though.

They have at alternate points this season, and there's no reason to believe they won't again.

But they have to get some things straight, and fast.

If they don't fit better against the run, Falcons running back Michael Turner might go off, because he's better than the guys they were facing.

If they don't actually throw the ball to someone without it becoming a defensive highlight, they're going to be short on the scoreboard, because the Falcons can put up points.

One of the more interesting voices in the Panthers' locker room after last week's loss was wide receiver Steve Smith's.

No, he wasn't grouching about not getting any action. But he knows that until his half of the offense catches up, the Panthers become easy marks for good teams.

"We can be our own worst enemy," Smith said flatly. "But that's only if we go in the tank and don't get better."

Like most questions that deviate from his weekly talking points (there are three or four reliable chestnuts), Fox blew off one the other day about the similarities to his 2003 team, using his old reliable "every team has its own personality," mantra.

But that team was 8-2 also, looking much like the current bunch in its ability to play defense and run.

That team then lost its tough-and-smart edge and three straight games to come back to the field.

It took that team, young and unsure of its place in the world, a few weeks to realize sloppy play will get you your eye blacked.

You can only hope at this point that the light goes on for Fox and his crew, and they don't make the same mistakes again.