Get Going Downhill
Despite facing a fairly poor rushing defense in the Giants, the Panthers had their worst rushing performance of the season on Sunday, with McCaffrey, Anderson and Newton all being held under four yards per carry. While some of this can be put down to blocking, it’s also true that the Panthers appeared to change the focus of their rushing game, with questionable results – both Anderson and McCaffrey, despite their very different styles, are at their best when running downhill with a specific gap being generated to get them into the second level of the defense. However, despite doing this very successfully through three weeks, the Panthers moved to more of a lateral stretch-zone offense against the Giants; not only does this not suit the Panthers’ running backs, but it also puts a lot of pressure on the offensive line to maintain blocks for a sustained period. Offensive line play is arguably the most difficult thing to do well in football, and good offenses realize this and look to simplify what they ask their offensive line to do in order to combat this. If the Panthers had the Cowboys’ offensive line from a few years ago then they might be able to get away with running the offense they ran against the Giants, but as they don’t they would be best advised to revert back to the simple-yet-effective inside zone scheme they ran so well during the first three weeks; it seems obvious that Norv Turner saw something in the Giants defense he thought he could exploit – it remains to be seen what type of rush attack the Panthers will utilize this weekend.
Cam Needs To Be Cam
Cam Newton played a solid, if unspectacular, game against the Cowboys in Week 1; in Week 2 against the Falcons he was genuinely excellent, and while he made some nice plays against the Bengals he also left some plays on the field. Against the Giants, however, he had comfortably his worst game of the season, not just because of the interceptions but also because he missed a number of open receivers and didn’t look in control at times. Fortunately, a poor game by Cam is still a pretty decent game, and he manage to engineer a couple of nice drives and got the team in a position – barely – to kick the field goal that won the game and allowed the Panthers to get a win even when they played poorly. This is what great teams do – and what the Panthers did in 2015 – namely, they won games even when they didn’t play at their best. However, with a number of tough games coming in the next month, the Panthers can’t afford to play that poorly on a consistent basis, and some of that is going to have to come from Cam.
However, if the running game is working, the Panthers don’t need Cam to play at his best, but rather to simply make the open throws that will emerge. He is capable of making plays no other QB can, he even made a couple of these plays against the Giants – but if he can simply take what the defense gives him, that should provide a healthy baseline for the Panthers, and one that they can then build upon once the season begins to enter the closing stages. If Cam has a great game against the Redskins that would obviously be nice, but if he can reach the standard of merely good that he is more than capable of, that should be enough for Panthers fans to be going on with.
The Panthers mediocre performance against the Giants can at least be put down to them coming off a bye week, and while that win allowed the Panthers to move to 3-0 at home, it should be noted that they are 0-1 and have lost three straight on the road – given that this game likely won’t have the same emotional charge that the division game in Atlanta did, Sunday is a perfect opportunity for the Panthers to show that they can go on the road and beat solid, competent football teams. Washington isn’t likely to be playing in this season’s Super Bowl, but they are a good enough team that a win in their house should encourage fans about this team’s chances of contending.
If nothing else, 4-1 sounds a lot nicer than 3-2.
