After battling with Daryl Worley for the cornerback position opposite James Bradberry for much of the season, second-year pro Kevon Seymour was called upon for a slightly different, yet still important duty against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. With Captain Munnerlyn a surprise healthy scratch after walking out of practice Wednesday, the Panthers relied on a rotation of Colin Jones, Seymour and occasionally Jairus Byrd. Seymour has had his ups and downs this season, but as a key part of the Panthers secondary depth and a talented young player, he certainly has a role on this defense.
We caught up with him after the victory over the Packers to discuss how the defense is playing, what his personnel formation is called and what the Panthers are expecting from Jameis Winston and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next weekend.
The wins keep coming, the defense really seems like it’s hitting it’s stride, especially in the secondary, especially forcing turnovers. What’s the secondary feel like to you?
Ultimately, we’re just trying to play fast and play together; so we’re back there having fun and just doing our job.
How nice is it for Daryl and James after facing adversity through the first part of the season to pick up four turnovers in four weeks?
It’s great. It’s great for them and it’s great for the team; it’s a long season, so they were going to come sooner or later. Both of those guys work hard and are great players, so I think they’ll keep on coming.
Seems like you were playing, for lack of a better term, a ‘small nickel’ while Colin [Jones] was playing the ‘big nickel’, is that right?
**laughs** Nah, I’m a big dude! So you can call it big on big, we were just switching off at big nickel, taking turns. I consider myself a big nickel, I’m six foot tall too!
But not like Shaq sized.
No no no, not that big. We’ll just call it regular nickel, not ‘small nickel’.
OK, so regular nickel. I’d heard that they called it a ‘Husky’ personnel when Shaq was in because he went to Washington, and ‘Frog’ when Colin was in there because of TCU; so do they call it ‘Trojan’ when you’re in there?
We do that. We were talking about it earlier this week, so we’ve got some names for it and yeah, we did bring up Trojan.
You guys have faced so many Hall of Fame quarterbacks, what was the mindset with Aaron Rodgers on the other side?
We knew he’s a great quarterback; he can make all the throws on the field, around the field, so we just put the focus on us, rather than on him. We come into every week putting the focus on us and doing our job, not focusing or putting it on the other players.
Do you feel like the whole team is hitting it’s stride late in the season?
Yes. This is the time to separate yourself all around the league. That’s what we’re doing, trying to separate ourselves and keep on getting better every week.
Speaking of separating yourselves, do you do any scoreboard watching? The Saints won again today.
I didn’t, some people were asking around after the game for stuff like that, but no, I don’t check it.
Is it frustrating that you keep winning but you’re still not moving up the rankings?
Not really. We know that if we keep doing our job and winning, then we know that something special will happen for us.
Next week, you’ve got Tampa Bay, Jameis Winston, any thoughts on that matchup, I know it’s still early, but…
Yeah, it’s early, but now it’s time to move on and focus on our next opponent. Tampa’s coming up, so we’re going to be in here early tomorrow and doing our film study already; we know Jameis, he’s a great quarterback. Great in the pocket, he can move his feet very well and he can makes plays and throws down the field. Like I said before, we’ve got to play disciplined. In our secondary, you’ve got to play disciplined and it’s all about communicating; if we’re playing disciplined and communicating, we can play fast back there and have fun.
