When Cam Newton was asked this week about how much it means to have Pro Bowl tight end Greg Olsen possibly returning to the offense this Sunday, Newton – who has a nickname for everyone – called Olsen a “dictator of the huddle” and said one of the main reasons the QB is excited to ‘get his dawg back’ was an interesting one – it wasn’t just his presence running routes or blocking that Newton was most looking forward to – the 33-year old helps Newton to call plays in the huddle.
“I’m not the best playcaller,” admitted Newton with a smile.
Don’t misconstrue this comment as a disclosure that the quarterback has taken over playcalling duties or a referendum on #1’s leadership – while offensive coordinator Norv Turner decides which plays the Panthers will be running and they’re relayed into Newton’s headset, it’s up to the quarterback to tell the rest of the huddle what they’ll be doing, and that’s where Newton has his issue – something he discovered after hearing Drew Brees call a play on Monday night as he broke the NFL’s all-time passing yardage record – not with the plays themselves, but with the physical amount of words it takes to describe them.
“I don’t know why plays are so long – calling a play shouldn’t be a paragraph,” Newton said with a chuckle. “I’ll be in the huddle, I’m already tired – I ain’t got time to say this, that, the third, the third, the third – ready ready, break – you only get but so much time.”
Cam even has some suggestions to make the play calls shorter:
Panther.
Rivera.
Tepper.
There’s a reason for the word salad in the huddle. With so many new pieces – don’t forget the only Panthers aside from Newton who played a significant chunk of time with this team last season are Devin Funchess and Christian McCaffrey, not to mention a brand new offensive coordinator and a left tackle who was sitting at home during Week 1 – it’s imperative that every player know exactly where they’re going on any given snap.
As the season wears on and players become more and more entrenched in Turner’s system, there will be more of a chance to utilize the shorter terminology – perhaps the 12 seasons Brees and Payton have had together have lent themselves to more of a shorthand in New Orleans while Newton is on his third coordinator in eight seasons. Turner says that the team has shortened some of their calls, but “there’s a fine line between making sure everyone knows what to do and making the calls as short as possible.”
“We can go up and go, ‘Dodge, Lincoln.’ That’s a play,” said Turner. “That’s a good number for everybody. Now we can also go up and go, ‘Shift, Jack, Right, Slot, Key Left, 7-8-6, F-Drag, Sneak.’ You can go either way with it.”
According to Football Outsiders, the Panthers use 29.42 seconds of the 35 second play clock on average.
The Panthers had six wide receivers, three running backs and two tight ends each take more than 10% of the snaps on Sunday – for comparison, the Giants had four wideouts, two running backs and a single tight end; with so many new faces running in and out of the huddle and lining up in multiple positions on a play-by-play basis, it means that roles must be clearly established – especially so early in the season.
The Panthers have used 75 unique offensive combinations this season and started a different lineup in four out of their five games.
“We have so many different receivers doing so many different routes, we’re not at the point where you can just cut everything down and have one-word concepts,” said guard Greg Van Roten, who spent time with the Packers, Jaguars and Seahawks before coming to the Panthers last season. “This is the nature of installing an offense – you start, it’s very verbose and then the more you run something and the more comfortable you get, you just kind of give it a nickname and it becomes a concept.”
“Over the course of the season, it definitely evolves – once those young guys start getting more comfortable with the offense and the new guys, we can start changing things a little bit and we don’t have to have long playcalls.”
Si expect the playcalls to stay the same length – at least for now, but at least when a call like ‘Shift, Jack, Right, Slot, Key Left, 7-8-6, F-Drag, Sneak.’ comes in, Newton will have some help with Olsen set to return on Sunday. Ready?
Break.
