A half-dozen notes from the Carolina Panthers’ 22-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
Football is a fickle game.
After Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton had spent 21 of his 31 targets on Kelvin Benjamin and Greg Olsen in Week One, some wondered if Newton didn’t spread the ball around enough.
In Week Two, some wondered if Benjamin’s 7-catch, 108-yard, 2-touchdown performance made him an unstoppable force.
A week later, everyone’s now wondering how Benjamin could go an entire game with just one target and no catches.
“I’ve got a job to do. I just go out and run the routes,” a tight-lipped Benjamin said after the Panthers’ 22-10 loss to the Vikings.
Benjamin’s disappearance was the biggest stunner in a head-scratching day at Bank of America Stadium. His only target came late in the fourth quarter, and even that was almost intercepted by cornerback Marcus Sherels.
The Vikings often sent safety help over to Benjamin’s side, but other teams have done that. It had never stopped Newton from feeding Benjamin time and again.
Coming into Week Three, Benjamin had averaged over 9 targets and nearly 5 receptions in his first 20 career games. Over the season’s first two weeks, he caught 13 of his 21 chances. Then came the Sunday shutout.
“We have to get our playmakers involved in the game plan and it starts with me as the signal caller,” Newton said. “For him not to have any touches is, you know, really baffling and wowing. But you know we just had to find ways.”
Whether it was the extra attention, play calling, Newton’s decisions or all of the above, Benjamin wound up with his first goose egg since a Florida State win over South Florida on Sept. 29, 2012.
While Newton was targeting Ted Ginn Jr. and Philly Brown a total of 12 times, Benjamin and Devin Funchess saw a combined 3 targets. Even though, according to a former Panther, Funchess wasn’t a big part of Minnesota’s game plan.
“We weren’t worried about him,” cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said. “It was Kelvin Benjamin. I’m just going to be honest. Me personally, and I never talk like this, but I don’t think he is that good, No. 17. So, we weren’t really worried about him.”
Coach Ron Rivera’s teams have never had a glaring lack of discipline, but this one isn’t off to a good start. They’ve totaled 26 penalties so far in 2016, which will likely land them inside the top-5 for the most through three games.
Of the 10 calls against Carolina on Sunday, none was bigger than the block above the waist on Benjamin that brought back what would have been a 56-yard touchdown catch and run by Fozzy Whittaker.
“I think it was it was two-sided. One hand was on the back of his shoulder and the other was on the front. But they ended up making the call,” Benjamin said.
“As a team, you can’t leave it in the officials’ hands. When you got a team down 10-something, you’ve got to finish.”
And while you may have your own No. 1 reason for why the Panthers lost, flags were at the top of Rivera’s list.
“You can’t have ten penalties for 65 yards with the number of plays that were negated,” he said. “We shot ourselves in the foot.
“This goes back to the mistakes we made and the silly penalties we had more than anything else. That goes on me. Like I said, it’s about discipline, and if we aren’t playing disciplined, then I’m not doing something right. So I have to get that corrected.”
After their 14-0 start last season, the Panthers have split their past eight games. Stewart hasn’t played in 2.5 of the four losses, and it’s not a stretch to wonder if the offense is too dependent on having him healthy.
Cameron Artis-Payne can provide a spark here and there, but he’s not Stewart, who defenses have to show more respect.
While not given a ton of running room, Artis-Payne managed just 47 yards on 12 carries, with 30 of those yards coming in the first half. Whittaker and Mike Tolbert, meanwhile, added only 27 yards on 7 carries.
Even if Artis-Payne wasn’t much of a threat, it’s fair to wonder if offensive coordinator Mike Shula abandoned the run too early. Once the Panthers became predictable, Newton was in trouble.
“Once we were able to stop the run it’s a lot easier to (have an effective pass rush),” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said. “I felt like because we played the run well, we were able to do that and allowed our guys to try to get after the quarterback.”
It’s not really a blueprint because few teams in the league have defenses like the Broncos and Vikings, but they’ve shown how to slow down the Panthers’ offense. Stop the run, overwhelm the offensive line, hit Newton in the mouth.
The Vikings piled up 8 sacks, the most since the Eagles got Newton 9 times during Carolina’s MNF nightmare in 2014.
Since the start of that season, Newton’s taken 43 sacks in his 18 wins. In his 13 losses, he’s taken 51 sacks. If the Panthers can’t protect him, odds are they’re not going to win.
They most certainly won’t if they’re as predictable as tight end Ed Dickson made them sound.
“It seems like they watched a lot of film on us,” he said. “We definitely have to go back and scout ourselves. Make sure we aren’t giving any tendencies away.”
Newton didn’t take his 12th sack last year until Week Eight against the Colts. And as of late Sunday night, the Panthers’ 12 sacks allowed tied them with Cincinnati for most in the league.
The Vikings had 8 yards net passing in the first half. That’s not a typo. 8.
But after quarterback Sam Bradford went 4-of-11 for 26 yards and two sacks, something changed at the start of the third quarter.
Minnesota went to a short passing game, which allowed Bradford to get into a rhythm. His line in the second half: 14-of-17 for 145 yards and a touchdown with no sacks and no passes that went for more than 20 yards.
“We got to some of our quicker stuff, we got to empty a few times, we tried to spread them out,” Bradford said. “As much zone coverage as they were playing we felt like there was some air in there if we could get some space and kind of spread them out.”
Added Panthers defensive end Kawann Short, who has 10 tackles and no sacks in his first three games:
“He adjusts and that’s scary. As a defensive line, you want to see those quarterbacks get scared and move off their spots. That’s one thing we didn’t do.
“As far as up the middle, I take credit for that. We didn’t get enough push and get that guy off his spot. When you see a quarterback back there, poised and looking through his reads, that’s not good for the defense as far as the defensive tackles. We didn’t get a good push.”
If you’re going to have a bad game, you might as well have reasons to blame the offense, defense and special teams.
In their last meeting with the Vikings, the Panthers became the first team in 24 years to allow two blocked punt touchdowns. At least their gaffe was more traditional Sunday.
With Andy Lee punting from the Panthers’ end zone, Sherels fielded the kick at his 46. It appeared Daryl Worley and Colin Jones had a good chance to make the tackle, but Sherels split them en route to a 54-yard touchdown.
“There were a couple of guys who had chances to make a couple of plays early on in the coverage, and we got sealed up in through the middle, and he got outside to our defensive right,” Rivera explained. “Once a guy gets into your second wave of guys, you are in trouble. That’s exactly what happened.”