The Panthers have one game left in this terrible, no-good, very bad 2019 season and as they go careening into their home finale, let’s try to parse out exactly what this game – and what the team itself – will look like after the Panthers’ seventh straight loss after speaking to interim head coach Perry Fewell Monday afternoon at Bank of America Stadium.
What’s Going To Happen With Vernon Butler?
Perry Fewell said he hasn’t had a conversation with the defensive tackle that was ejected from Sunday’s game against the Colts, but that “all options were on the table” after being asked if releasing the tackle was an option.
“We’re talking as an organization and we’ll address that,” said Fewell.
However, releasing the former first-round pick doesn’t appear to make much sense – they could simply make him inactive for Week 17 and allow him to leave in the offseason – after having more sacks in the past nine games than he had in the first three years of his career combined, the 25-year old will almost certainly garner some interest in the open market and thus figure into the Panthers’ compensatory pick formula for 2021.
There’s also the possibility that the league will step in and discipline Butler. The Panthers declined to pick up his fifth-year option last offseason after he failed to establish a role for himself in his first three seasons – but with more snaps, he has flourished this season with both Kawann Short and Dontari Poe on injured reserve.
Butler showed remorse for his ill-advised punch (plus even less-advised middle finger to the crowd) after the game.
“It’s not me. It’s not my character,” Butler said. “I want to apologize to this organization, to my teammates. I’m sorry.
“I take full responsibility for it. It won’t happen again.”
Fewell Reacts To Locker Room
After the Panthers lost in Indianapolis, veteran leaders like Greg Olsen and Tre Boston spoke out about how they were unhappy with both the direction the team has been going the past month and how coaches have been preparing them for games – Fewell didn’t have a lot to say on the subject Monday, but while he said that he hadn’t spoken to Olsen yet, he understood the frustration that has permeated the Panthers’ locker room in a season that they entered with Super Bowl aspirations and are now, for all intents and purposes, playing for the highest draft pick possible – in case you’re curious, the Panthers could get as high as the sixth pick with the right combination of wins and losses.
“I just think that everybody’s really frustrated at this point in time after losing seven games and that’s all I think about it,” said Fewell. “It’s just frustration…..when you have a streak of losing, I know there’s a lot of frustration that boils – and I know there’s a lot of frustration boiling right now.”
But his message to the team points forward instead of backwards.
“You’ve got a one-game season. Win one game. Put all of your efforts, put all of your frustrations, put everything into this one game. If you win this one game, that’ll be alright, because that’s the only thing you have – you have one game left.”
Two Punt Returns For Touchdowns? TWO!??!?!
The Panthers joined a dubious club as they allowed two punt returns for touchdowns in the same game for only the 15th time in the past 50 years – and the second time in their franchise history – as running back Nyheim Hines took back two punts for scores.
Entering Week 16, Hines had previously returned only four punts for 66 yards in 2019 – on Sunday, he returned three for 195 yards.
Perry Fewell threw his punter directly under the bus, saying that while there were some breakdowns in coverage, he had ordered punter Michael Palardy to kick both punts that were returned for scores out of bounds.
“I think he definitely mis-hit the one,” said Fewell. “I know when you try to direction punt, sometimes you don’t take the proper steps, you don’t open your hips the right way – and that’s how you can mis-hit a ball.”
Will Grier To Start Week 17
While Will Grier had a rocky start, there were some flashes in his first start of the reasons why the Panthers made him the 100th overall pick – and Fewell says the third-rounder will get his first home start in Week 17 against a New Orleans team still striving for the #1 seed.
“I liked his confidence throughout the game, I liked the way he used his legs – he did dump the ball off to Christian McCaffrey about 15 times,” said Fewell about Grier, who completed 61.4% of his 44 attempts. “The three interceptions are the poor aspect of the game – once he threw into coverage and twice, he got hit when he threw the interceptions. It’s unfortunate for him that DJ Moore was injured early in the game, because he lost one of his targets and his weapons that he’d practiced with all weeks, so that comes along with the territory.”
While Moore likely remains in the concussion protocol and there’s probably not a reason to make the second-year wideout active in Week 17, Grier can use these mistakes to grow.
“With more experience, he’s going to be OK. He did some rookie things, he missed some targets, he missed some plays that were out there to be made, but he performed like a rookie on the road.”
Donte Jackson Benched
Two weeks after publicly criticizing the playcalling, second-year cornerback Donte Jackson was benched against Indianapolis in favor of Ross Cockrell, who has played almost 63% of the snaps thus far this season – Cockrell led the team in tackles yesterday and has played nickel corner, safety and outside corner at times this season as the 28-year old has demonstrated his versatility.
Fewell decided to make the change after Jackson had “a poor couple of weeks,” the interim head coach said after the game – through 15 games this season according to Pro Football Reference, Cockrell has allowed a 65.8 passer rating when targeted, while Jackson’s number sits at 103.3.
“The design was not for him not to play any defensive snaps, he did have some snaps on special teams,” said Fewell. “We felt like at the time that the defensive player that had replaced him was playing well, so we felt like there was no reason to change.”
“We’ll evaluate that as the week goes on, but I would think that, right now, that the player that played in his position would start on Sunday.”
