Even at the beginning, when everything was going right for the Panthers offense, there was a hint of the darkness to come.
On the first drive of the game, while the Panthers were efficiently moving the ball down the field – 75 yards in nine plays, 60 of those yards coming from Christian McCaffrey either on a swing pass or read-option plays that appeared to baffle the Steelers as he ripped off gains of 12 and 21 on the drive – the Panthers only threw three passes. One was the swing pass to McCaffrey for the score, the other was a failed screen where Greg Olsen fell down, but the very first pass of the game was a seven-yard completion to Jarius Wright. It was a quick-hitting route – and it had to be. Because as would be the case throughout the course of the game as the Steelers picked up five sacks and hit Newton on most dropbacks, the Steelers had a free rusher.
The Steelers, along with 11 other NFL teams, employ a 3-4 defense – and on a short week, coming off a stout 4-3 defensive line that makes for completely different preparation, the Panthers seemed on multiple plays to either not see rushers coming, not have the blocking assignments correct, or simply not communicating who was supposed to be blocking whom – Greg Van Roten said after the game that when you have 205 pound Christian McCaffrey blocking a defensive end, something’s gone wrong.
Indeed, on Cam Newton’s ill-advised interception, Newton doesn’t even look in TJ Watt’s direction before the snap and Watt is able to come untouched into the backfield to force the errant throw. Watt said after the game that he was assigned to be responsible for Newton regardless of whether it was a handoff or not, so when the play-action rollout rolled right into the linebacker, it wasn’t going to end well for the Panthers.
That’s 2️⃣ touchdowns in 1️⃣3️⃣ seconds. 🤯
👏 @VinnyVidiVici98 pic.twitter.com/xey71L9f3n
— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) November 9, 2018
“I’m not going to fault a guy for trying to make something happen,” said Ron Rivera when asked what he wished Cam had done differently. “He had a couple of guys that were in an area that he saw and tried to get the ball in their direction and unfortunately, as he was whirling around, the ball floated.”
While Rivera says that the Steelers were able to rush the passer once they built their lead, which grew as high as 38 points during the blowout, it appeared the the Steelers were able to get pressure on Newton early on in the game, appearing to stem from confusion up front – although Ryan Kalil said that wasn’t the case; it was simply a lack of execution on multiple levels that did the Panthers line in against Pittsburgh, who entered the game with 24 sacks in eight games.
The Panthers had only allowed 12 over the course of the first eight weeks before allowing five to the Steelers.
“They’re good players on that side and we didn’t do a good enough job all around and we all kind of took turns – up front, backfield, Cam,” said Kalil, who hadn’t practiced all week with an ankle injury. “We’ve just got to a better job, we’ve got to get on the same page and it’s not how we drew it up. It wasn’t confusion, it wasn’t that we didn’t know who had who – we just got beat.”
“We didn’t come to play,” said left tackle Chris Clark. “We clearly got outplayed today, but the majority of the downfall is on us. We are a lot better than what we put out there today”
Once the Steelers were able to get the lead – and they had it less than five minutes into the first quarter – they were able to pin their ears back and disguise their rushers even further, much like the Panthers were able to do on Sunday when they were up by four scores in the first half against Tampa Bay and were able to hit Ryan Fitzpatrick 11 times over he course of their 42-28 victory over the Bucs.
“When you can mug the front and put six different players and still stack a safety behind it – now tell me who’s coming,” explained Rivera.
“That’s the hard part that these guys have to work on – it’s being able to recognize certain things but when they do something that’s a little different or a little new, you’re going to have those kinds of things happen. It’s difficult to sit there and say ‘well, you should pick it up every time’ – it’s why defenses are designed.”
In a league where the NFC may have up to four playoff teams who utilize the 3-4, the Steelers may have put something on tape that can prove helpful to other teams down the road – Rivera called it a “beg, borrow and steal league” and a tape in which the Panthers gave up five sacks, passed for less than 200 yards and threw an interception can be invaluable for a future opponent, so it will be up to the coaches to make adjustments and corrections going forward – something that will start this weekend.
The coaches are studying this weekend, evaluating both their personnel and their schemes to insure the Panthers don’t have a repeat performance in any of the games during their stretch run towards the playoffs; while the coaches are burying their heads in film to utilize all ten days between Thursday’s debacle and their next game with Detroit, Rivera hopes that the players take the mini-bye to get away from football and come back on Tuesday refreshed both physically and mentally for the stretch run towards the playoffs – and beyond.
“It gives them an opportunity to rest their bodies,” said Rivera. “I’d like to think that we’re going to have more than seven weeks left.”
