Throughout the 2018 season and as we’ve hurtled through the first half of the season and the Panthers have run out to a 6-3 start, there has been a single buzzword that has echoed throughout each signing, each draft pick and even each offensive scheme. Something that the Panthers have hoped that new offensive coordinator Norv Turner could cultivate and something that’s ultimately let them down each time they’ve lost this season.
Speed.
It was the impetus behind adding Donte Jackson to the secondary to play opposite James Bradberry or drafting DJ Moore a year after adding Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel to their offensive arsenal; it’s in the offensive schemes as Cam Newton is getting the ball out of his hands quickly and to targets closer to the line of scrimmage; it’s in the mantra that the team has to get out of the gates quickly and off to a fast start – something that’s eluded them in all three of their losses thus far this season. But ultimately, the team has gotten faster – you see it in Jackson’s closing speed or Curtis Samuel running faster than 20 miles per hour on a reverse or even Christian McCaffrey exploding for 184 yards on the ground in Week 3.
And they’re about to get faster.
“Oh yeah, this turf we’re about to play on – I’m about to be fast,” said Devin Funchess, who is on pace to have the most receptions and yardage of his career. “Everybody’s going to be fast; when you play in a dome you get fast and you play fast.”
Even Torrey Smith, who won’t be playing on Sunday as he rehabs from a knee injury suffered in Week 7, says it feels different when you’re playing on an artificial field like the one at Ford Field in Detroit; it’s easier to unlock that higher top-end speed with artificial turf that’s not going to give under your feet as you burn down the sidelines. Damiere Byrd, famous in the Panthers locker room for his speed when he turns on the gas, says he runs a 4.2 40-yard dash on grass, but on turf?
“It’s lower than that,” Byrd grins. “I think you just feel faster on turf; I couldn’t really tell you if it’s more psychological or just how much faster we are running around, but I think it does give us quite an advantage as far as outright running.”
The Panthers aren’t changing their scheme because of the artificial turf that may be ramping up the miles per hour of their skill position players, but they’ll continue to dance with the one that brought them here, continuing to rely on the misdirection, option and motion offense that has them third in the league in average rush yards per game – not to mention having Cam Newton on pace for the best completion percentage, passer rating, interception rate and completions per game of his career.
Newton mentioned this week that quality throwing conditions for quarterbacks that play most of their games indoors usually lead to league-leading numbers, but points to quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and others that have been playing outdoors for their entire careers; it’s not something you think about when you play outside on a regular basis – it’s not something you can control, so it’s not worth worrying about.
Although there’s one important factor when you’re playing in a dome, especially coming off a week in which the Panthers missed their Thursday practice session due to heavy rain and cold temperatures.
“You don’t get nervous looking at the weather report all week, knowing that it’s going to be dry,” said Newton. “And that’s what you care about the most.”
While you can look at the turf and expound about the difference it will provide for an offense like the Panthers – or even for Matthew Stafford and his weapons, the most important word on a football field isn’t speed.
It’s execution.
“I think we look pretty fast when we play well, regardless of the surface,” Greg Olsen, always the voice of reason as turf-related speed talk reverberated, said this week. “But we’ve got to play well. We’ve seen what happens when we play well and we’ve seen what happens when we don’t play well; our focus is mostly on those things that we control versus surfaces and domes and outdoors, indoors, weather – a lot of that stuff is not really up for much discussion.”
Olsen, who aggravated his foot injury last season on turf in New York, isn’t worried about how his foot will respond on the turf this weekend.
“It kind of is what it is at this point.”
The speed isn’t just going to be about how fast the Panthers are matriculating down the field, it’s going to be about how they get out of the gate in Detroit. They were halfway there on Thursday night with a crisp and efficient touchdown drive to begin the game in Pittsburgh before their seven point lead turned to a seven point deficit in 13 seconds of playing time as the defense gave up a 75-yard touchdown on the Steelers’ first play from scrimmage and Newton threw a pick-six on the ensuing possession.
“I think it’s important for our whole team to go out and start fast this weekend,” said Thomas Davis, who has the second-most tackles among active NFL players, said this week. “Once we create momentum on the road, you’ve got to do a good job of keeping that and for us defensively, we let that slip away. We’ve got to do a much better job of that once our offense goes out and sets the tone.”
In a dome, it can be doubly important – last season when the Panthers jumped out to a two-score lead in the third quarter, it was eay to hear the Roaring Riot that had traveled from Charlotte to see their team – rather than the Detroit faithful who came to see the hometown Lions.
Keep Pounding chant here at Ford Field after that Funchess touchdown and the Panthers lead 17-10 with 48 seconds left in first half.
— The Riot Report (@RRiotReport) October 8, 2017
That’s what Ron Rivera is hoping for on Sunday.
“You’ve got to have success early because you have to be able to take the crowd out of it – obviously, Pittsburgh’s crowd got into it very early once they had a little success,” said Rivera. “That’s kind of the objective this week is we’ve got to be smart about it because we will be in a dome and it could get very loud.”
That will all depend on two things – how the Panthers play early.
And how quickly they do it.
