Damiere Byrd hadn’t scored a touchdown that counted in over three years.
Despite a preseason touchdown his rookie season and three this August, the lightning-fast third-year pro from South Carolina hadn’t put his team on the scoreboard in a game that went towards the records books since his only catch against Clemson his senior year of college in a 35-17 loss at Death Valley. It took seven games this season and almost 38 minutes of game time on Sunday to get his first touchdown.
It took only 10 to get his second.
Damiere Byrd reached the apex of his young career with a breakout game against the Packers after having his best statistical game of his career last week against the Vikings, catching all five of his targets for 37 yards; this week, he had three catches for 25 yards and the two scores, although many people thought the first catch may not have actually been a completion until the referees announced it after a Ron Rivera challenge.
“Byrd’s been huge for us,” Greg Olsen said after the game. “That first touchdown, I think everyone in the stadium, including me, thought he was out. I was telling them not to challenge it from the side; it looked like he was clearly out of bounds. Obviously, he wasn’t so I’ve never been more happy to be wrong. What a great catch.”
“I have to admit. I was 150,000 percent wrong.”
“You know they have ‘Toe Drag Swag’, probably like ‘Butt Drag Swag’ or something like that. I’m sure Twitter can come up with something better.”
-Damiere Byrd on what they should call the first touchdown catch of his career
The Panthers are hopeful that Byrd can continue to utilize the additional playing time he’s received since he’s returned from a broken forearm to cement his role as the second wide receiver on a team that needs multiple targets for Cam Newton to stretch the field and make teams pay for double-teaming Greg Olsen or Devin Funchess. An injury to Curtis Samuel and the trade of Kelvin Benjamin have thrust Byrd into the spotlight and Mike Shula and the Panthers are hopeful that he can continue his growth as the Panthers make a run towards their ultimate goal, a trip to Minnesota in February.
“We’ve always felt like he was going to continue to get better with playing time,” Shula said. “We knew he had speed; we felt like he was one of those guys where even though he hadn’t had a lot of playing time he’s gotten better each offseason. He’d gotten better in the OTAs, he’s gotten stronger, he’s gotten better knowledge; [Byrd] knows basically all the positions. He just needed to have some playing time and get some experience.”
Now that he’s gotten the playing time and the experience, Byrd is ready to do whatever is necessary to help the team win, deflecting questions about himself after the game as he dealt with the largest media presence around his locker of his career. Byrd seemed content to talk about how the running game was coming together, giving credit to his teammates, and commending the misdirection in Shula’s game plan before finally talking about what he called the best catch of his life and how he’d been counted out multiple times throughout his career.
“I think that started from middle school on to high school to being recruited to college, so on and so forth,” Byrd said. “It’s the same story every year, the same story every level; but I think that, if [you] keep pursuing it and you have your own dream, you’re the only one that will have confidence in you.”
That confidence is growing every week.
