This week's bye came at a much-needed time for the Carolina Panthers. After going 15-1 in 2015, the Panthers are off to an abysmal, and overall surprising, 1-5 start.

They've lost three games by three or less points, but given how many close games they won last year, their record in close games was likely to regress. Rather than pointing the blame at luck, Panthers head coach Ron Rivera has admitted to the real culprit: their shaky defense, and in particular, their secondary.

Carolina's defense has given up the third-most points in the NFL this season. After letting Josh Norman go in free agency, the Panthers have started three rookie cornerbacks as well as some young, unproven safeties.

It was a gamble on Rivera and the Panthers' part, and it has backfired immensely.

From Rivera's press conference:

“It was a little bit of a roll of the dice, I guess. We felt really good about (James) Bradberry, we didn't expect him to get hurt. But Daryl Worley's been playing pretty well. I thought Zack (Sanchez) did some good things, showed us some things. Again, you're going to take your lumps when you do that.”

The main lowlights that stand out are Julio Jones eclipsing the 300-yard mark in receiving, as well as Drew Brees coming just short of 500 passing yards this past Sunday.

There have been some questions about the departure of veteran Bene Benwikere, who was cut a few days before the loss to New Orleans. Rivera defended the move:

“We've got young guys that are gonna play and, quite honestly, Bene didn't do the things that we needed him to do. And so, feeling the way we did about it, and feeling that there are some things we had to do to get these young guys some opportunities, that's what we decided. We're going to go forward with it. They made mistakes, we're going to take our lumps, but hopefully they'll pick it up and get things going. If we can get the pass rush going, I think we're going to be okay.”

The secondary isn't the only position group taking lumps from Rivera, though. Knowing how inexperienced their secondary was going to be, the Panthers planned to rely on their stout defensive line, which was critical to their Super Bowl run last season.

It hasn't played up to the task at hand so far. More from Rivera:

“That's probably the biggest disappointment, that we haven't had the production that we would like out of the front. The front has done a nice job, we did a good job stopping the run, but that's not what's killing us. We have to find that productivity.”