Black and Blue Review
From conference call with Carolina media
“I think that our division always has been very competitive every year, and it’s competitive again this year. It’s coming down to the last week of the season, and I think we know what we’re playing for and Carolina knows exactly what they have to do. So, that should set up for a very competitive game.”
RE: On the Panthers’ run game
“In my mind, they’ve got four really good guys that could wreck a game. It starts with the quarterback and his ability to run and then Jonathan Stewart is running the ball extremely well. And if we load up to try to take away the run, Greg Olsen and Kelvin Benjamin are two outstanding receivers. It’s a chess match that you’ve got to play, and it’s going to come down to a couple of things. It’s going to come down to who takes care of the ball, and it’s going to come down to who is the most explosive on the offensive side and then converts on defense. You want to take it away and not give up the big plays.”
RE: On injured starting safety William Moore
“We’re going to miss him. He was on designated to return, and he reinjured his shoulder. The silver lining is the guy that’s going to be stepping in and playing for William, has more snaps than William has this year. Kemal Ishmael has done a very good job for us, and he’s getting better. But, William is a very physical safety that can play at the line of scrimmage and back off the line of scrimmage just as good. Ishmael is going to have to step up.”
RE: On the Panthers’ improved defense
“Tre Boston at the safety position is a good player. He shows speed. And Bene Benwikere, he played the nickel a little bit in the game that we played them, but he’s played well. And I think the most improved player that’s really showing up a lot on the defensive side of the ball is the corner, Josh Norman. He’s playing extremely well. I don’t know because I haven’t looked at the Pro Bowl and all that, but I think you got two Pro Bowl linebackers. I don’t know if they got voted or not, but both of those guys are playing lights out. It’s fun to watch Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly play. They play at a different speed. They’re running by guys that should be faster than them. They’re playing really well.”
“We are just treating this as a playoff game; that is what we’ve been doing these last couple weeks. We’ve just been going out there and treating every game with the utmost importance. Our team has been excited these last couple weeks. I think when we went up there to Green Bay, ever since we went up there and played pretty well, our team has been really excited to go out there and play week in and week out. Our players have been playing well. We have a lot of guys playing at a really high level right now, and we are going to need that on Sunday.”
RE: On things getting chippy in the first meeting
“It is the division, it seems like every time we go mix it up with a team we get into fights and stuff like that. Everybody is fighting and scratching to make it into the playoffs. The intensity level is so high in these games because it is right down the stretch. We are going to try to keep our composure, we don’t need any flags or stuff like that throughout the game. We are just going to try to stay as calm as possible and just try to go out and play football.”
RE: On the rivalry with Carolina
“I think those guys and the Saints are our big rivals in the division. Every time we play Carolina it feels like it is just chippy. Everybody is on the edge, and everybody wants to get out there and hit each other. I feel like our rivalry is not as good maybe as Pittsburgh and Baltimore because they’ve been doing it a lot longer than us, but I feel like when we square off against each other we get after one another.”
RE: On the Panthers’ pair of rookies starting in the defensive backfield
“Every time you put rookies on the field you want to try to get after those guys. You just try to get formations and stuff to get those guys in mismatches and things like that. We are going to look to take advantage of those guys, but they’ve played enough football throughout the year to know and understand what is going on out there.”