Ross Cockrell vs Chris Godwin
The Buccaneers only had 208 yards passing against the Panthers in Week 2, but 121 of those went to Chris Godwin – while the Panthers can’t get lost in just trying to stop him, they cannot afford to let him burn them like that once again. Fortunately, the past couple of weeks have given the Panthers a very clear indication of how they might do this in terms of how they use their defensive backs.
For the past couple of seasons, the Panthers have talked a lot about using their defensive backs more as matchup pieces rather than as CB1 and CB2, but until Donte Jackson’s injury, they had essentially stuck with Jackson and Bradberry as the outside corners. Some of that might be down to Cockrell’s injury last season, but even when they played against the Bucs in Week 2, the Panthers kept Jackson on Godwin throughout the game, despite Godwin having three inches and almost thirty pounds on Jackson.
The Panthers, however, struggled covering DJ Chark this week, with Cockrell’s 4.56 speed making it hard for him to stick with the 4.34-timed Chark. It is still unclear whether Jackson will be back for this Sunday, but the Panthers should use these two games as a guide for how they should use Cockrell and Jackson going forward. James Bradberry is going to cover Mike Evans, and will cover Julio Jones and Michael Thomas, but they should looked to use Jackson and Cockrell much more strategically, with Jackson looking to cover smaller, faster receivers, and Cockrell larger, more possession-based receivers. Of course, this is something that will vary somewhat based on the offensive personnel, but the Panthers should strongly consider using Cockrell against the bigger Chris Godwin.
Kyle Allen Needs To Show Growth
Kyle Allen is a second year quarterback who went undrafted out of Houston, got cut and then resigned as a rookie and is only playing because Cam Newton is hurt. That isn’t a criticism, but rather some important context, as it does seem as though expectations regarding Allen need to be tempered somewhat after his solid opening performance against a poor Cardinals’ defense. In reality, Allen has played good but not great thus far this season, completing 60 of 90 pass attempts for 674 yards and five touchdowns, with four of those coming against the aforementioned Cardinals.
Those are perfectly respectable numbers, and while the number of fumbles he has had should be rather worrying to observers, from a throwing-the-ball point of view he has done a decent job of not putting the ball in positions where it can be intercepted and has been generally accurate. Apart from the second half against the Cardinals, however, it is hard to say that he done anything more than just enough for the defense to win them games. That is fine, that is the job of a backup quarterback, but if he is going to continue to win by such fine margins, it is hard to see the Panthers continuing to stay much above .500, if at all.
Take this Sunday’s game against the Jaguars – Allen went 17-of-30 for 181 yards and a touchdown, but 70 of those yards and the touchdown came on two passes, one of which was to a wide-open CMC who then took it to the house and the other was essentially him putting the ball up in the air and trusting DJ Moore to make a tough contested catch, outside of that he was 15-of-28 for 111 yards.
Fortunately, this Bucs defense has not been good against the pass since they played the Panthers in Week 2, giving up 1,198 yards and eight touchdowns in the three games since – while that doesn’t mean that Allen should be able to throw the ball around all over the place against them, he needs to show that he can do more than just hit open receivers and not throw the ball to defenders. Of course, the offensive production, either good or bad, won’t be down to just Allen, but if he continues to miss open receivers and run into pressure rather than away from it as he did on Sunday then this team will continue to limp to wins, if they are able to win at all.
Again, this isn’t an attack on Allen, he has performed as you would expect a UDFA backup quarterback to play while largely avoiding any huge mistakes – when you exclude the fumble habit – but if this season isn’t just going to be a case of seeing if this team can still be relevant should Cam Newton return from injury, he needs to show more than he has to this point.
Taking Chances On Defense
The Panthers defense has actually been quite good this season, allowing an offense to reach 30 points just once and forcing eight turnovers and a ludicrous 34.5 TFLs, but one thing they haven’t done quite so well is make that count when it really matters. The Panthers are allowing opponents to convert 42.9% of third downs (24th in the NFL) and to score on 60% of red zone trips (19th in the NFL) – that lack of a clinical edge was visible a couple of times against the Jaguars.
First, this team needs to turn more of their interception opportunities into actual interceptions, as while the Panthers rank third in the NFL in passing yards allowed, seventh in passes defended and second in sacks, they rank just 17th in interception percentage, and there were a couple of times at least on Sunday where the Panthers had a chance at an interception and either dropped it or had it negated by penalties.
This was also something that they saw in the first game against the Bucs, the only game this season where they weren’t able to generate a turnover, as they saw chances at interceptions fall to the ground. The Panthers’ defense is built around pressure and forcing mistakes, but so far this season they haven’t been amazing at capitalizing on those mistakes, something that needs to change.
A play Luke Kuechly usually makes. That kind of night.
The other way they need to improve, as mentioned earlier, is to do a better job of getting off the field.
For a team that has been as good as the Panthers have been against the pass – and as good as their pass rush has been – it is astonishing how easily teams have converted third downs against them so far this season. This isn’t unique to this season for the Panthers, as they have only finished in the top ten in third-down defense twice under Rivera, and never higher than ninth, but this is really something they need to address.
It is no good doing the job of forcing teams into long third downs only to allow them to convert them.
The other way this showed up against the Jaguars was at the end of the game, where it took them three Hail Mary attempts to get off the field without giving away a penalty, negating a game-sealing interception in the process. NFL teams are far too good to consistently hand opponents extra chances to score points and not think that is going to come back to hurt you. The Panthers got away with it on Sunday, but they cannot rely on doing so again.
The Panthers should fancy their chances on Sunday – this Bucs defense isn’t hugely good and their offense has struggled to produce consistently as well. However, this is not the Bucs team that has just rolled over in recent years, and the Panthers cannot afford to leave as much on the field as they did against the Jaguars and expect to win the game. This is a great chance for the Panthers to put themselves in a great position going into the bye week, but they need to make changes if they are to carry that momentum much further.
