What an electric first game from the Carolina Panthers!
Carolina started the game by turning over the Bears on their first drive, leading to an easy score!
Bryce Young was phenomenal on the day, totaling 371 yards, four touchdowns (including one rushing), and, yes, had his government-mandated interception. But unlike in years past, the turnover didn’t lead to points!
Brad Idzik’s first game as a play-caller went smoothly as well. Gone was the conservative Canales’ playbook in favor of taking more opportunities downfield, which led to six scoring drives!
In total, Carolina scored 37 points, which is more than the previous three season-opening games (30) combined!
All in all, Sunday was a fun and pretty complete win for your Carolina Panthers!
Except, the Panthers didn’t win, did they?
None of what I said above is false; Carolina really did score 37 points, a mark the team hasn’t hit since the thrilling win in Atlanta to conclude the 2024 season.
Bryce Young had one of, if not his most complete game as a passer on Sunday, consistently finding and exploiting mismatches down the field.
Jalen Coker continued his emergence during last year’s playoff game, hauling in 8 of 9 targets for 138 yards and 2 touchdowns, both career highs.
For the most part, Brad Idzik called an excellent game, mixing in the run when necessary but allowing Bryce to operate and carve up an anemic Chicago defense.
So if the Panthers scored 37 points, the QB operated at a high level (Young ended Sunday Top 5 in Total EPA), and the new play-caller didn’t falter, how the heck did Carolina lose?
Late in the 3rd quarter (4:31), Carolina was tied with Chicago 31-31, and had backed the Bears up in the red zone, looking to force what would’ve been Chicago’s second field goal attempt of the game.
The play, courtesy of NFL Pro, is shown below.
After an uncharacteristic roughing the passer penalty from Carolina’s best player, Derrick Brown, the Bears would go on to score 28 more points, bringing their total to 59(!), the most ever allowed by a Panther defense.
No, the 59 in this article’s title is not an homage to the HOFer Luke Kuechly, who made his broadcasting debut on Thursday calling LA/SF for Netflix. 59 is simply the number of points this defense allowed.
There is no way to sugarcoat it - Sunday’s performance was a complete disgrace by the defense.
Sure, there were failures in every facet of the game. Tetairoa McMillan fumbled soon after this play, stopping any momentum the Panthers offense had left.
Jimmy Horn Jr. fumbled his first punt return, setting Chicago up with an extremely favorable field en route to one of their nine scoring drives.
But the majority of the onus falls on a defense that spent $165 million in free agency back in March.
Before I get too deep into the defensive disaster, I’d like to review the keys pointed out in last week’s preview of this game.
“Keep Pounding the rock” - Carolina had 14 rush attempts from Chuba Hubbard and Jonathon Brooks before the starters were ultimately pulled. Those two, along with Bryce Young’s two scrambles, accounted for 73 rushing yards.
Verdict: Fail
“Test the new defensive backs” - Contrary to the run game, Bryce Young absolutely tested the Chicago secondary. On his 37 pass attempts, Young pushed the ball downfield quite a bit, including connecting with Coker on a 51-yard touchdown.
Verdict: Pass
“Put pressure on Caleb Williams” - Despite Williams’ own 269 yards passing, the defensive front was able to pressure him intermittently. The issue, however, was the inability to contain Williams on those pressures, who amounted to 65 rushing yards.
Verdict: Fail (only two sacks)
“Have a fast start” - Carolina was able to score on their first drive. After a lull in the first quarter, the Panthers ultimately were able to score 24 points in the first half, a number that dwarfed what the team was able to do last season.
Verdict: Pass
It seems Carolina was able to get the offense going early and took advantage of the Chicago defense. The main blemish offensively was the run game lacking any sort of potency.
The frequency with which runs were called was also inconsistent, as Carolina ended up wasting two drives by starting with consecutive failed runs, and ending with unsuccessful third downs, including Xavier Legette dropping his only target of the day.
Turnovers were the other key issue on offense. If you include the failed 4th down attempt (near field goal range), the offense had three turnovers. Combined with Horn’s dropped punt, the Panthers gave the ball away four times in a game where the opponent scored 59.
Despite this, the offense still scored 37 points. In most NFL games, that is more than good enough to get the win. Sunday’s theme, which isn’t exactly new, was the defense being unable to complement the offense.
Carolina’s defense allowed 291 yards rushing and 6(!) rushing touchdowns in this game. Chicago was 10/14 (71.43%) on 3rd downs, and ended the game with scores on 9/13 (69.23%) of their drives.
Numbers like these should stand out as major disappointments, and hopefully few and far between. Unfortunately, that hasn’t necessarily been the case in recent Panthers’ history.
This side of the ball has been atrocious during Ejiro Evero’s tenure. Of course, these numbers are a bit inflated by the 2024 unit, which gave up the second most yards in a season and the most points ever in a season.
But 2024 was two years ago; the team should be better by now, right?
Believe it or not, no team was able to put up the amount of rushing yards or scores against Carolina in 2024 that the Bears did on Sunday, and that was a season without Derrick Brown!
One of the biggest excuses throughout the Evero era is that the defensive staff did not have the players in place to properly execute the scheme.
Evero comes from the Vic Fangio tree, which emphasizes pressure with a four-man rush, and clouding the back end of the defense to confuse quarterbacks post-snap.
And in 2024, this reasoning would probably be valid. Derrick Brown was lost for the season after week one, and the team didn’t have another standout on defense besides Jaycee Horn.
Since then, Carolina has paid Tre’von Moehrig, Tershawn Wharton, Devin Lloyd, and Jaelan Phillips all significant contracts in free agency. Three draft picks on Day 2 (Scourton, Umanmielen, Hunter) have also been added to this group.
The talent is undeniably better than it was two years ago, so why are the same mistakes still happening? Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams deserve a portion of the credit, but they weren’t wholly responsible for the almost three hundred rushing yards allowed.
There’s a quote that says insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Merriam-Webster might disagree with this definition, but the fact that Carolina has been faced with the same issues for going on four seasons now, without significant change, is baffling.
To the chagrin of some fans, no public blame or admonishment has been given out by the team specifically to Evero or his staff following the loss. To be frank, I understand and agree with this approach from Canales in his pressers; there’s nothing to be gained from bashing members of the team publicly.
But beyond that, there have been no real outward pressures put on Evero, despite record-breaking bad seasons and an overall lack of improvement or development on the defensive side of the ball.
In fact, the Panthers actually extended Evero’s contract in a somewhat clandestine manner at the end of last season.
I’m not sure I’m ready to say Evero is the sole reason for the defensive woes and needs to be replaced following a week one bludgeoning, but all the pieces are in place for him to succeed.
After four offseasons of installing his scheme, staff, and talent, there is no excuse for the type of performance the defense had on Sunday.
59, who was calling the game with Anish Shroff and Jake Delhomme for Panthers radio, would be ashamed.
Let’s hope that was the wake up call that Derrick Brown needed to get back on game. I hated to see him have a bad day. Coker was rockin’!