Although the Panthers had an abysmal night offensively in their 10-3 loss to the New England Patriots on Thursday night, there was a bright spot: rookie edge rusher Brian Burns.
On the night, Burns finished with five tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble as well as a tackle for loss. In the second half, Burns took down Patriots quarterback Jarrett Stidham for a strip-sack that was recovered by defensive tackle Woodrow Hamilton. Later on, after being pressured on the outside by Bryan Cox Jr., Stidham was forced to step up and Burns was able to register his second sack of the night.
After having two sacks against the Chicago Bears in his preseason debut, Burns says he hopes his strong preseason play translates to the regular season – because his first three games are going according to plan for the Florida native.
“Yeah, I definitely hoped for, definitely prayed for, this is what I wanted to do and I’m glad everything is coming to fruition,” Burns said after Thursday’s game.
The rookie has been showing off with poses of his favorite comic book character after big plays thus far in the preseason; with his early success, some might think he would begin to run out of different Spider-Man poses he could use, but that certainly isn’t the case. When asked if he would run out of poses, Burns grinned and reached under his chair, pulling out a thick book of Spider-Man comics and rifling through them – “I’ve got this whole book to choose from.”
Burns picked up the book at the mall with fellow rookie Christian Miller Wednesday and while he was there, he picked up some gifts for his friends on defense – socks depicting the comic book character Burns thinks they embody most.
“I got Luke Captain America, I got Shaq [Thompson] Wolverine, I got Thanos for KK [Short], Bruce [Irvin] is Venom, D-Jack is Deadpool. James Bradberry is Black Panther,” Burns listed. “[Marquis Haynes], he’s Flash, [Christian Miller] is Iron Man, but they didn’t have any. Everybody has a name right now.”
No socks for the most famous superhero on the team?
“No socks for Cam, he’s Super-Man. He’s on the offensive side.”
Luke Kuechly’s socks. Courtesy of Brian Burns
Burns passion for Spider-Man movies helped inspired his sack celebrations dating back to his days at Florida State. While the only time he gets to show them off is when he records a sack, there’s no reason to think Burns won’t potentially have a number of them during his rookie season at Carolina. During his three seasons in Tallahassee, Burns had 38.5 sacks for the Seminoles, which is one of the reasons why the Panthers decided to select him with the 16th selection in the NFL Draft. Burns appears to be a perfect fit for the Panthers new 3-4 defensive scheme with his 6-5, 250-pound frame, despite playing as a 4-3 edge defensive end at Florida State.
Panthers coach Ron Rivera says he has liked how Burns has performed during the preseason, but he thinks that even after Burns’ big night, he still left a lot on the table.
“There’s a couple of things he has to understand or he would have made a few more plays,” said Rivera. “But there’s some things we’ve got to teach him, he has to understand the right way of doing things and I think he will be an even more effective player for us.”
Bruce Irvin and Mario Addison are currently projected to be the Panthers starting outside linebackers. But if Burns continues to play well during the preseason, it will be tough to keep him off the field considering he was such a high draft pick – the coaches plan to use a rotation and the more plays he makes in the preseason, the more chances he’ll get in the regular season. Right now, Burns is just taking everything in and enjoying his early success, but the veterans – who sometimes can be a little suspicious, may have other plans for Burns to continue his success.
“He got two sacks today, so maybe he should give us socks everyday,” smiled Luke Kuechly as he held up his Captain America socks. “So maybe we’ll see what happens the next few weeks.”
