In the first Carolina Panthers game of the season, there were a few surprises in the number of snaps taken by certain players. While it should come as no shock that the offensive line and quarterback Cam Newton stayed on the field for every snap (except for one, in which center Ryan Kalil was shaken up and lost his shoe, resulting in Tyler Larsen making a brief appearance), more interesting is the fact that rookie running back Christian McCaffrey was on the field for 47 of a possible 67 offensive snaps. For perspective, Jonathan Stewart, the starter, got the call only 29 times; Stewart touched the ball on almost 70% of the snaps he was on the field, though. Damiere Byrd received ten more snaps than rookie speedster Curtis Samuel, but that was for a few reasons: Byrd is a more competent blocker, especially around the edges of the line, and Samuel is still being worked in as he recovers from hamstring issues which caused him to miss most of training camp. Expect those numbers to flip as the season moves along, especially in games where they don’t run the ball more than thirty times as the game gets out of hand early.
On the defensive side of the ball, both starting safeties played on every snap, which is either a vote of confidence for Coleman and Adams or a fear of seeing Colin Jones and Demetrious Cox on the field; perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Charles Johnson(28), Julius Peppers(26), and Wes Horton(23) played in a relatively even rotation, with Horton getting many of his snaps on the interior of the defensive line. Without Vernon Butler, and Kyle Love only able to stay on the field for 14 snaps, Horton picked up the slack and performed extremely well, getting a nice push and getting his third strip-sack in his last four games. DE Mario Addison saw 63% of the snaps, a huge uptick from last year in which he only was on the field for 40% of plays. Clearly, the Panthers are looking for more from the man to which they just handed a nice contract extension. Thomas Davis and Mike Adams, two of the oldest players on the defense, each were on the field for every single snap. Age ain’t nothing but a number.
Fozzy Whittaker played on 13 special teams snaps, which is why he was active and Cameron Artis-Payne was not. Also interesting that Julius Peppers was out there for special teams snaps blocking for the kicking unit. How’d you like to try and bull rush him? The below table is sortable, so please, play around with the numbers and draw your own conclusions. Have some questions or notice something interesting? Leave it in the comments!
| Player | Position | Offensive Snaps | Percentage | Special Teams | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turner | G | 67 | 100% | 5 | 25% |
| Norwell | G | 67 | 100% | 5 | 25% |
| Olsen | TE | 67 | 100% | ||
| Newton | QB | 67 | 100% | ||
| Kalil | T | 67 | 100% | ||
| Kalil | C | 66 | 99% | ||
| McCaffrey | RB | 47 | 70% | 4 | 20% |
| Funchess | WR | 45 | 67% | ||
| Benjamin | WR | 43 | 64% | ||
| Dickson | TE | 40 | 60% | 13 | 65% |
| Stewart | RB | 29 | 43% | ||
| Shepard | WR | 20 | 30% | 10 | 50% |
| Byrd | WR | 19 | 28% | 8 | 40% |
| Samuel | WR | 12 | 18% | 8 | 40% |
| Manhertz | TE | 12 | 18% | 7 | 35% |
| Whittaker | RB | 1 | 1% | 13 | 65% |
| Larsen | C | 1 | 1% | 7 | 35% |
| Coleman | SS | 57 | 100% | 3 | 15% |
| Kuechly | LB | 57 | 100% | 2 | 10% |
| Adams | SS | 57 | 100% | 2 | 10% |
| Davis | LB | 57 | 100% | 1 | 5% |
| Bradberry | CB | 56 | 98% | 7 | 35% |
| Worley | CB | 56 | 98% | 4 | 20% |
| Short | DT | 47 | 82% | 2 | 10% |
| Lotulelei | DT | 45 | 79% | 2 | 10% |
| Addison | DE | 36 | 63% | 2 | 10% |
| Munnerlyn | CB | 32 | 56% | 1 | 5% |
| Johnson | DE | 28 | 49% | ||
| Peppers | DE | 26 | 46% | 7 | 35% |
| Thompson | LB | 26 | 46% | 5 | 25% |
| Horton | DE | 23 | 40% | ||
| Love | DT | 14 | 25% | ||
| Hall | DE | 9 | 16% | ||
| Seymour | CB | 1 | 2% | 6 | 30% |
