Last week against the Cardinals, Eagles wide receiver Nelson Agholor caught a long ball from quarterback Carson Wentz fifty yards past the line of scrimmage, stiff-armed a safety, made a cutback and put the defender on skates before turning around and facing the field as he fell backwards over the goal line. It was the kind of play that is on the highlight reel for years to come and exactly the kind of play that the Panthers want desperately to not happen against them. “It’s nice that it didn’t happen to us,” safety Dezmen Southward said. “Great move. You’ve got to watch it and say, ‘Wow’ but that that’s something you don’t ever want to have happen to you.”
“You don’t want to get dunked on.”
Those big plays are exactly the kind that the Panthers want to avoid against the Eagles, who had touchdowns of 59 and 72 last week against the Cardinals, and they’ll be looking to a player that was not on the roster last Monday on passing downs. The Panthers employed a safety rotation last week at Detroit, with Colin Jones taking just under 60% of the defensive snaps and new signing Jairus Byrd the remainder. Similar to a situation that took place in the middle of the 2015 season when Tre Boston and Roman Harper split reps at the free safety position for a few games, Jones is acting as the “run specialist” at the free safety spot while Byrd spans the field on obvious passing downs.
“We felt that we have a combination of guys that we could use and play to their strengths,” Ron Rivera said after the win over Detroit. “We saw a couple of things that showed us that Jairus has the range of a guy you’re looking for at that position, and Colin showed us his aggressive nature and played downhill; he made a couple of big plays for us.”
When the team lost both starting safety Kurt Coleman with an MCL sprain and backup Demetrious Cox to an ankle injury, they looked to Colin Jones to finish out the New England game and he was the primary safety on the final touchdown drive in which Tom Brady was able to drive 51 yards for the game-tying touchdown. When it became clear that neither Coleman nor Cox would be ready to go against the Lions, the Panthers made a move to sign Byrd, who went from free agency to playing against top-tier quarterback talent in less than a week. “They’ve got a bunch of great players on this team [the Panthers] and they’ve all been so welcoming,” Byrd said. “I’m here for whatever they need me to do.” Whatever they needed from him last week included matching up with Matthew Stafford, Golden Tate, and Eric Ebron. This week, the Panthers will expect more of the same from him as he gets more acclimated to a defense that has only allowed two passes over 25 yards in five games this season, including none against a potent Lions passing attack during the first week of the rotation experiment.
“We’re very excited about it, we’re very pleased about what we’ve gotten from the two of them so far and hopefully we can get that again tomorrow night,” Rivera said on Wednesday.
Most importantly, don’t get get dunked on.
