CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Stephen Davis carried the load to help his new team settle an old score.
Davis rushed for 153 yards as the Carolina Panthers snapped a six-game losing streak against the Atlanta Falcons with a 23-3 victory.
Atlanta won the two meetings between the clubs last year by a combined 71-0 margin.
Davis opened the scoring on a one-yard touchdown run with 3:17 left in the first quarter. The play capped a 10-play, 93-yard drive on which Davis rushed for 46 yards.
"When you can't stop the run, it certainly puts you in jeopardy of losing," Falcons coach Dan Reeves said. "They do a good job of running the football."
Carolina's defense, meanwhile, continued to stifle its opponents. The Panthers (3-0) have not allowed a touchdown since the second quarter of their first game. Kemp Rasmussen also registered Carolina's sixth blocked kick of the season, getting a finger on Jay Feely's field goal attempt in the third quarter.
"We go out there and play, this is the result we get, not giving up TDs, you win a lot of games," said Carolina cornerback Ricky Manning, who had an inerception. "We had them covered out there pretty good."
Feely did spoil the shutout, though, when he kicked a 28-yard field goal with 3:46 left in the fourth quarter.
"We wanted (the shutout) bad," said Panthers cornerback Terry Cousin. "What we did was good enough. Sometimes it's hard to get a shutout. You see how hard it is. But in the end it was a good overall win."
The Panthers also started 3-0 last season, but lost eight straight games before coming on strong at the end of the year with four wins in their final five contests.
"I think this team is a little bit more mature," Carolina coach John Fox said. "I think our three wins this year mean a little more in my mind because two of them were against division teams and we didn't win a division game until the last game of the season a year ago."
This was the first time this season that the Panthers did not have to sweat for a last second win. Their first victory over Jacksonville came on a touchdown with 16 seconds left, while their win the following week over Tampa Bay was in overtime.
Atlanta (1-3) continued to struggle as Michael Vick recovers from a broken right fibula. Filling in for Vick, Doug Johnson completed 14-of-23 passes for 153 yards with an interception. Peerless Price, who signed as a free agent in the offseason, caught only five passes for 30 yards.
"We were 1-3 last year, but we were playing better," Reeves said. "We had a chance to win all of those games. So it's tough. We aren't doing our job."
Alge Crumpler was the Falcons' leading receiver, catching three passes for 76 yards, including a 63-yarder that set up Atlanta's field goal.
"I put myself in a position to make plays," Crumpler said of his low reception total. "It takes 11 guys to do this."
T.J. Duckett's 100-yard rushing effort was just about the only other highlight for Atlanta's offense, which put up only 11 first downs with 267 total yards, although 104 of those yards came from Crumpler's catch and a 41-yard run by Duckett.
