The Carolina Panthers started spring workouts in April where the offensive line could begin to work together.
They had OTA and minicamp sessions in June to practice next to each other, learning each other’s tendencies and movements.
They had over a month of training camp that stretched from late July to the end of August – time to learn a blocking scheme and an offensive playbook and develop a camaraderie; even as Daryl Williams and then Matt Kalil and Jeremiah Sirles and Amini Silatolu got hurt and the linemen shuffled, they still knew each other – but when Williams suffered another knee injury during Week 1, the Panthers needed to find even more help up front, signing eight-year veteran Chris Clark, who started 14 games for the Houston Texans last season, on Wednesday morning.
Five days later, Clark was protecting Cam Newton’s blind side as the starting left tackle.
“For a guy to show up Wednesday during practice and then play in the game Sunday – and play the whole game – on the road, it’s not easy to do,” said Greg Van Roten, who started next to Clark at left guard. “I don’t know many people who’ve ever done that and I thought he did a really good job today.”
The Panthers offensive line allowed only two sacks on Newton, with one coming on a cornerback blitz where Brian Poole came completely unblocked on the right side – the other came from the left side as Takkarist McKinley came around the edge past both Clark and Van Roten to get to Newton. But overall, the praise was heavy for the burden that Clark had to undertake.
“What happened last week and the way they played I think it was tremendous,” said Ron Rivera. “Just the fact that we have all those moving parts right now, kudos to those guys for how hard they played and kudos to the coaches. I thought Coach Matsko and Coach Wharton did a great job getting those guys ready to play.”
Clark surprised himself that he was able to play the entire game and Rivera admitted Monday that the team hadn’t planned to play Clark for as long as they did, but the lineman said he could continue when the coaching staff asked him; he hadn’t started a game since Week 11 of last year and working out privately is not the same as blocking Takkarist McKinley or Vic Beasley for 65 offensive snaps.
But while the 32-year old’s conditioning held up for the entire game, it was the communication with Van Roten, who started next to Clark at left guard – one of only two players on the line who has started both games at the same position this season – that truly allowed Clark to be effective on the outside.
Van Roten said after the game that after Newton would call a play in the huddle, the left guard would then communicate to Clark who he was supposed to be responsible for or what play they were running – sometimes even pointing out players along the line.
“We didn’t care if they knew that we were coming to them, we didn’t care about disguising signals or anything like that,” explained Van Roten, who said the offense used their advantage of knowing the snap count to counteract the fact that they were tipping their hands to the defense. “We just wanted to make sure that we were on the same page, so that he was never like ‘I’m not sure where to go.’
Another week of practice will improve Clark’s performance quite a bit moving forward and if he can stay at left tackle, then Taylor Moton can stay on the right side, his more natural position; they’ll likely be shuffling again up front if Trai Turner is cleared from the concussion protocol this week.
“Think about it, we had [Tyler Larsen] starting at right guard for the first time, we moved a guy back from left tackle to right tackle and brought a guy off the street and started on Wednesday,” said Rivera. “He was more than prepared – he’s got a lot to learn still, in terms of knowing what we’re doing, but based on the way he played, you have to give him [credit].”
“Well, you don’t have to – but I would.”
