Black and Blue Review
There was no way for the Panthers to make the film from their 38-17 loss in Green Bay look any better than it was. But the tape apparently revealed something that may be a bigger concern than poor execution.
“We’re not competing hard enough,” linebacker Thomas Davis claimed Monday. “From the film we watched, we have a lot of guys that are on a consistent enough basis that are not competing hard enough, and it’s showing up.”
That’s a disturbing take-away from one of the Panthers’ captains. But except for one half against the Bears, the defense hasn’t been good for more than a month.
While searching for reasons why, most have looked for a drop-off in talent from 2013’s second-ranked unit. This group has many of the same faces, but it doesn’t appear to be playing with the same passion.
“If you look at last year’s defense, if I miss a tackle or someone misses a tackle, we had guys flying around and making that play. It covered up some of the stuff that was going on,” Davis said.
“You have to be willing to go out and compete and give yourself up for this team, for this defense. You have to play like that the whole game. You can’t pick your spots and say ‘Hey, I’m going to play right now, and, I’m going to take this play off.’ That play you take off could cost us the game.”
The Panthers are obviously having a harder time without Pro Bowl defensive end Greg Hardy, who’s been in NFL limbo since Week 3. But it’s fair to wonder if they’re also missing a guy like safety Mike Mitchell. They would have been silly to match the five-year, $25 million contract the Steelers gave Mitchell this offseason, but he did provide a certain edge to last year’s defense.
Former cornerback Captain Munnerlyn, who also left for a bigger deal in Minnesota, had a bit of an attitude as well. That’s one of the reasons the 5-9, 195 former 7th-round pick has been able to carve out a six-year NFL career.
The Panthers rebuilt their secondary with veteran safeties Roman Harper and Thomas DeCoud and cornerback Antoine Cason, while ends Wes Horton, Mario Addison and rookie Kony Ealy are trying to fill Hardy’s spot. Seven weeks into the season, the pieces still aren’t fitting into place.
Most of the numbers are ugly, and they’re getting worse each week.
After allowing at least 37 points in four of their last five games, the Panthers have given up 195 points this season. They allowed just 241 all of last year.
The 2013 defense gave up 13.8 points per game, the second fewest in the league. This year they’re allowing an average of 27.9 points, which ranks them 29th.
The Panthers are also missing way too many tackles, something that’s led opposing offenses to gain chunks of yards after the catch. According to Pro Football Focus, the Packers picked up 193 of their 255 passing yards after the catch on Sunday.
“When you play fast, and you play physical, you’re going to miss some tackles. As long as somebody else is coming, that’s ok. It’s when you’re missing tackles from technique, and nobody else is there … we’ve got to do a better job of swarming and gang tackling,” defensive coordinator Sean McDermott said.
“People are going to make plays in the passing game. These quarterbacks are good, and they’re going to make plays, and if the ball’s going to come out, then we’ve got to swarm and reduce the yards after catch.”
Another problem is what’s happening before the Panthers have to make a tackle. They’re allowing a 70 percent completion rate, the league’s third-highest mark. Only the Raiders and Bucs — who have just one win between them — are allowing passes to be completed at a higher clip.
The last five quarterbacks who faced the Panthers were especially efficient. Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco, Jay Cutler, Andy Dalton and Aaron Rodgers combined to connect on a stunningly high 76.5 percent of their passes (124-of-162). All those completions added up to 1,390 yards with 12 touchdowns and just four interceptions.
“We’ve got to find a way to contest throws. The NFL is a game of contested throws. We didn’t have a pass breakup yesterday,” McDermott said.
Despite all the negative numbers, the 3-3-1 Panthers are somehow still in first place. And while that mostly speaks to the current quality — or lack thereof — in the NFC South, if the defense doesn’t figure out a way to play better or harder, Carolina’s place atop the standings will change sooner rather than later.
“We’re number one in the division right now, but if we continue to play the way we have it won’t last long,” Davis said. “First and foremost we have to go out and do our jobs against Seattle, or the outcome won’t be any different than the one we had this past weekend.”