As Panthers fans breathed a sigh of relief with Cam Newton returning to the game after spending four plays under the dreaded blue tent on the sidelines, the bigger story may have been taking a cart to the locker room as starting right tackle Jeremiah Sirles – himself taking the spot of Taylor Moton who moved over to left tackle to take the spot of Matt Kalil after planning to take the spot of Daryl Williams at right tackle – was taken to the locker room with a hamstring injury and didn’t return, pressing 26-year old former practice squad player Blaine Clausell into action at right tackle on an offensive line already riddled with injuries. But, in a surprising twist, the patchwork offensive line combined to allow the Panthers to rush for over four yards per carry in the first half before both McCaffrey and Newton came off the field.
“We were in sync,” said left tackle Taylor Moton. “We came out, we executed, we’ve just got to build from it.”
During the first drive, with Sirles still in the gameCam Newton scrambled out of the pocket to his right, eschewing an open Christian McCaffrey for the opportunity to run for a first down – and as if he had forgotten that this was the third week of the preseason, lept in the air and stretched the ball to move the chains – and promptly landed directly on his head. After Newton was sent to the blue tent for a concussion test, Taylor Heinicke came in – giving us an early clue as to who is leading for the backup quarterback spot – for four plays before Newton returned and led the Panthers inside the five-yard line. But the Panthers longest drive of the preseason, a 16-play, 77 yard monster that took almost ten minutes of game time, ended with a Graham Gano field goal after the Panthers stalled on fourth and one at the Pats’ three yard line.
While the coaching staff can’t be happy about settling for three, one would think that the playcalling might have been different in the regular season.
On the other side of the ball, it was the tale of two rookies as Donte Jackson and Rashaan Gaulden both got the start – Jackson stood out with a big tackle to upend James White on third down on the opening drive of the game, while Gaulden was on the sidelines by the third drive as the coaches wanted to see Colin Jones fared at safety in a rotation against the Pats’ first team. Overall, the secondary played well, holding Tom Brady to 102 yards on 18 attempts and 130 total yards in the first half; most importantly, the Patriots only scored three points, even though they held the ball for 14 minutes of the first half.
“We’re just well prepared,” Jackson said about the defense’s performance. “We’ve been preparing for this offense so we know they have a good team. They have a really good motion offense that likes to get things done efficiently. We were just prepared for it; that’s all it was.”
“We defend every blade of grass.”
Aside from Jackson, who played well in his second consecutive start on the outside, the player that turned the most heads was – pause for shock value – Luke Kuechly, who had an absolutely other-worldly series in the red zone in which he had three consecutive tackles to force a field goal that would cut the Panthers lead to 6-3. With Thomas Davis missing the first four games of the season, expect Kuechly to have an even larger role than he has over the past four years – we got a glimpse of what the defense might look like without Davis as TD took most of the second quarter off and the Panthers used a fair amount of David Mayo in addition to a lot of snaps for Captain Munnerlyn in the nickel role. As the defense held the Pats to only 28 yards rushing – less than three yards per carry – in the first half, both Kuechly and Shaq Thompson had seven tackles apiece.
The first half ended 9-3, and instead of the starters returning for a series as promised, both quarterbacks were done for the night – Cam Newton’s stats for the preseason will likely finish at 26 for 38 (68.4%), 315 yards, one touchdown and one interception for a 91.4 passer rating as he is unlikely to play next week in Pittsburgh. The first drive of the second half resulted in a touchdown, though, as Heinicke appeared to cement his backup quarterback status by leading a seven-play, 49-yard touchdown drive that included a dart to Curtis Samuel for 31 and a fourth-down conversion that had Heinicke peeling towards the pylon and outrunning Eric Lee for the touchdown – if he wasn’t four inches and 40 pounds lighter, you might have mistaken him for Cam Newton.
The game would finish 25-14, with the Panthers advancing to 3-0 in the preseason for the first time since 2006.
Other Notes:
- Da’Norris Searcy did not dress for the game after suffering a concussion last week against the Miami Dolphins; also not dressing was cornerback Kevon Seymour, allowing Lorenzo Doss and Corn Elder to get additional snaps – Seymour was absent from practice on Wednesday as well. With Seymour not suiting up, the first cornerback off the bench to start the second half was Lorenzo Doss, who subbed in for James Bradberry on the outside alongside Donte Jackson; Doss matched Kuechly and Thompson with a game-high seven tackles.
- After so much talk about Christian McCaffrey’s usage, the running back continued to look like the absolute foundation of the offense with 14 touches in the first half, including 10 (!) touches on the first drive – he would finish with 14 touches for 64 yards, including 12 on the ground, many of them inside the tackles. CJ Anderson did not receive any work in the first half, but looked strong with the ball, averaging over seven yards a carry on his two totes.
- Curtis Samuel continued his strong preseason showing as he again led the team in receiving, this time pulling down three catches for 58 yards
- Graham Gano was 4-for-4 on the night – his longest being from 47 in the third quarter that put the Panthers up 18-3.
- Mose Frazier caught his second touchdown of the preseason from Garrett Gilbert, this one a dart across the middle from six yards out – a nifty bit of route running allowed Frazier to be wide open in the middle of the end zone. Gilbert finished with 46 yards and the lone touchdown in just over a quarter of action; Heinicke would finish with the same 46 yards on only six attempts, of which he completed five.
