Despite entering the game as the underdogs on Sunday, the Panthers were able to come back from Houston with the W due to an excellent defensive performance, the perfect combination of tight coverage and persistent pass rush. Not only were they able to get good pressure on Watson with some consistency, but they were also able to turn this pressure into a pair of turnovers.
One of these came via a great bit of awareness by Ross Cockrell, but it was the second of these which ultimately all but clinched the game with the Texans driving down three late in the fourth quarter. We all know what happened – Butler got the strip sack, Eric Reid recovered and the Panthers were able to kick a field goal having run the clock down to under a minute remaining. But how did they manage a key fumble at a key moment?
The Set Up
The Texans had the ball on their own 36-yard line facing a 2nd-and-6, and came out in the following formation:
There are a number of things to note here, starting with the Panthers defensive line grouping, with four down defensive linemen and Thompson outside the right tackle with the possibility to either rush or drop. They have Tre Boston deep and Kuechly over the middle at five yards depth with the appearance of offering one on one coverage across the board. From the Texans’ point of view, they have Hopkins isolated on the far side of the field against Bradberry, and this is indeed the effect they were looking to create, which is reflected in the offensive play call:
The idea of this play design is to flow the running back to the flat in order to create the inside space inside to get the ball to Hopkins on the slant. On the near side, they have a vertical route to clear out space and the combination of a TE route to the flat and a corner route in order to create a high-low read against the outside corner should the Panthers drop into zone – something they did a lot on Sunday in order to limit the Texans’ deep passing game. This is actually a pretty nice play design, and Watson should be able exploit the far side combination if the Panthers blitz and the near-side against off coverage.
So what went wrong for the Texans and right for the Panthers?
Pressure Points
From a coverage point of view, the Panthers are essentially in man coverage across the board – with a single deep safety and an extra underneath defender coming as a blitzer. However, the wrinkle is that rather than either Thompson or Kuechly coming as a blitzer, they actually rush Reid from the near side of the field and drop both Kuechly and Thompson, with Kuechly initially dropping wide before readjusting to take the center of the field. This means that the tight end gets left completely uncovered – it’s not clear if this is intentional or not – but as can be seen when you run the first part of the play through, Bradberry does an excellent job of pressing Hopkins off the line and with Thompson initially dropping after appearing to rush, Watson never progresses beyond his initial read, possibly because he thinks Kuechly is actually going to the near side with the tight end:
If you freeze the play at the point where Watson drops his eyes, you can see what Watson had to deal with before the pressure got to him:
The running back is yet to clear outside of the pocket so Thompson (red arrow) is able to just sit under the slant and with Bradberry doing an excellent job on Hopkins in the red circle, there is no chance of trying to work the ball over the top of the linebacker. On the near side, Kuechly is walling off any routes breaking back to the middle of the field with both receivers still running vertically.
The tight end is wide open underneath and circled in yellow, and if Watson had seen this, the play could have ended very differently – but this should be seen as a positive about how the Panthers were able to use their multiple defense to confuse Watson. Every coverage will allow receivers to get open eventually – the key is to get pressure before the quarterback is able to get the ball to the open receiver. So how were the Panthers able to get pressure before Watson moved back to the near side of the field?
Up Next: What A Rush
