The Tale Of The Tape
Third-and-longs are obviously harder to convert than third-and-shorts; however, that wasn’t the case for the Panthers on Sunday. The average distance of the Panthers’ first eight third downs was seven yards, with three failed conversions of four yards or less, so what went wrong?
While the average distance was only seven yards, the Panthers did face two long third downs, of 14 and 15 yards, both of which led to fourth downs. Offenses are always going to find it very hard to convert such downs and in both cases the Panthers opted to simply throw the ball short and punt rather than risk a turnover on a long throw:
For these, the question should be about how they ended up in these situations. In the first instance, the Panthers gave up a sack on the play beforehand, and on the second a holding penalty on third down put them well behind the chains. Offenses are going to make mistakes and the idea that there will be no sacks of offensive penalties is laughable; what is true, however, is that not all sacks can be put down to the cost of doing business. This sack, for example, should never have happened:
This is a play-action pass with the running back progressing to the flat and two receivers going deep and two tight ends staying in to pass protect. However, the Falcons drop seven players into coverage and Cam has absolutely nowhere to go with the ball. Play action passes do have a place in an offensive scheme, and if the Panthers had looked to establish the run throughout the game, they might have had more success in luring the Falcons’ linebackers down into the box, but that wasn’t the case. The Panthers only looked to run the ball on four of their 19 second downs, so the Falcons are hardly going to sell out to stop the run.
This appears to be a poor play call.
The Panthers also faced three third-and-mediums, and this is where they actually had some success early on, albeit with a little bit of luck. On the first conversion, the Panthers’ receivers fail to get any separation against the Falcons man coverage and it takes a moment of brilliance from Cam Newton to pick up a first down:
It is hard to know where the blame lies in terms of play design, play calling or audibles at the line, but this play had little chance of succeeding against this coverage, even without the early pressure inside.
The one really good third down play by the Panthers during the first three quarters came on the touchdown pass to Wright. Ian Thomas does a good job of drawing two defenders up the field, thereby creating space for Wright to sit in the hole in the zone and Cam finds him for the five-yard touchdown:
The only failed conversion on third and medium came on a third-and-8 that was created by a false start penalty from Torrey Smith to move it from a third-and-3 to a third-and-8. Penalties like this are both highly avoidable and damaging – this is not something that the Panthers can afford to keep doing. This then allows the Falcons to bring a corner blitz knowing they can afford to risk the quick throw underneath and Larsen fails to pick up the blitzer, leading to the sack:
It’s always going to be difficult to convert these plays as the defense has enough space to take some risks on underneath routes, but the lesson here should be about the penalty negating two plays of good progress. We’re not likely to see two wide receiver false starts the rest of the season, let alone two in one game.
The real concerrn, however, is the Panthers inability to convert short third downs. This is the situation you hope to put yourself into as an offense, and when a team fails to convert these plays, it is always going to be hard for the offense to put together long drives. Even worse, there is a real pattern to these plays which might be hard to overcome.
All three of these plays have two things in common: a throw that is not quite perfect and a failed reception by a receiver. On the first play in particular, Cam could have done a better job of making the throw before the pressure arrived, likely leading to a more accurate throw – but the receivers have to do better than this. Wright showed good hands throughout the rest of the game, but both Smith and Funchess had a number of drops or near-drops on Sunday and this is something that could hamper the offense throughout the season if it continues; Funchess and Smith have had a lot of the reps at outside receiver so far this season, and while Samuel’s return date is somewhat up in the air, both he and DJ Moore could see some of the outside receiving snaps going forward if Funchess and Smith can’t get their jobs done.
The Panthers shouldn’t feel the need to leap towards their panic buttons quite yet, and there are certainly a number of positives from Sunday’s game, but if this offense is going to be the dominant force it has the potential to be, then it needs to do the little things right as well as making the big plays.
