Carolina Panthers can't get out of their own way; Bryce Young struggles

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P-U-L-S-Z.com. Dennis Cox sitting in for AG this afternoon. Appreciate you for tuning in with me today. That's not Victoria on the other side of the glass. That's Graham Hill.

I'm not. What a wholesome intro by Manny Diaz, by the way. Yeah, you know, it's it's amazing. I was actually when I was listening to what Manny Diaz was saying there about, you know, sometimes like you get to experience something first to really understand it.

You know, he compared the first time he was a head coach when he was at the University of Miami to now being the head coach at Duke. OK, what did you learn from the first time saying, you know, it's kind of like you being a parent. I'm not a parent, but. People, many people out there listening are, but it's like being a parent or even maybe a dog owner until you actually do it and experience it for the first time.

You don't know how you're going to handle it. So he's he's saying basically that he learned a lot. And I wish the Carolina Panthers would actually maybe, you know, learn how to win some freaking football games so you can experience it a little bit later on. Six, Graham, six points. Oh, I thought you were talking about six losing seasons under David Tepper.

Wow, that is very fitting. So so if anything, yesterday's game, it really is the magic number. Gosh. All right, let's get this thing started. We are going to get to the Panthers here in a moment.

We're coming up in about 30 minutes or so. I'm going to tell you why I'm not quite ready to hit the panic button on the Carolina Hurricanes and a twelve forty five. I'm also going to tell you the big glaring problem when it comes to Duke basketball. But I got five things on the Carolina Panthers to get things started. All right. A lot of people are going to look at Bryce Young, the rookie quarterback.

OK, so let's start there. Bryce Young, the rookie QB. Didn't have a good game yesterday. I will say this.

Some people might disagree. I thought it was actually one of his lesser performances. Yeah, so far this season and he hasn't had many good ones, but also this team hasn't had many good ones.

You're one and twelve for a reason. Again, they lost if you decided to not watch it yesterday. Twenty eight, six, the final score on the road at the New Orleans Saints. Carolina Panthers losing once again, again, dropping to one and twelve on the season. There's just a little bit too many missed throws that I was I would expect Bryce to maybe make. For example, very tail part of the first half, about twelve, eleven seconds left in the first half. Jonathan Mango on a deep post route has his defenders beat. Bryce reads the play perfectly, has room to room to step up in the pocket. Time to throw the ball. And he just overshoots Jonathan Mango. He just completely misses that throw.

Those are ones that he has to make. There are some deep out routes or some deep corner routes. One to DJ Chark where he had to kind of make it, try to make a contested catch. Ball was just under thrown. That needed to be out a little bit more towards the sideline. So under throwing that was Bryce Young. There's another one where Adam Thielen had to slide down and make a catch on a deep corner route to the left side of the field. A ball that was once again under thrown by Bryce Young. There was a pass to Stephon Sullivan in the end zone where Bryce threw it behind. So even one across the middle of the field, Jonathan Mango, Bryce Young was threw it behind a little bit as well. There are a ton of problems on this Carolina Panthers offense.

Tons of problems. The offensive line and the protection as a whole isn't really good at all. Gosh, look at the play where it was actually, I thought they initially ruled an interception but they officially ruled the fumble.

But Bryce Young's turnover that he had, I think it was in the second quarter. There was an eight man protection. They had eight guys protecting Bryce Young and there was still a jailbreak.

Eight guys still and there's still a jailbreak. You know what in that case situation, Bryce just eat the football in that situation. Just eat the football. He tried to step up, try to make a throw and it ends up being a turnover. So it's just, I get it, everything around him was collapsing on him. That's not on Bryce. That's on the people that are protecting.

They're not doing their job but he's not helping the problem, if that makes sense. It's kind of compounding a little bit. Bryce Young, speaking of the quarterback, Mike, by the way, Bryce Young was only 13 of 36 passing yesterday. 13 of 36. Three complete passes in the first half. Not good. Bryce, why the team can never get the passing game going? Again, lack of execution, especially for myself.

Missed a lot of things. I thought we played well on the perimeter. Played well up front.

But I got to continue to get better. I kind of disagree with him playing well up front but he's going to say the right thing and not throw his teammates under the bus. So here's the thing with Bryce, he's always going to say the right thing. Always has. He's very well trained in that regard. But Chris Tabor, interim head coach, is Bryce gaining anything from all this? Absolutely.

I think that he's going to continue to improve and that doesn't concern me at all. We ran the ball for 200 yards today. So I know you're going right there at the line. But we ran the ball for 200 yards.

Somebody's blocking them. Okay, here's the thing. Both things can be true. You can have a really good performance in the run game as a team. But that doesn't mean your offensive line and their protection as pass blocking is good either. Like both things can be true. And just because you had a great game running the ball overall doesn't mean you necessarily were blocking consistently on all levels if that makes sense. Now here's the thing.

Bryce Young, like 40 of those yards were Bryce Young scrambling. Now that's probably something he maybe needs to do a little bit more is use his legs. And you know what?

Things are kind of broken down. If you got room to run, just trust your legs and go. And just don't take any big hits.

Just get down. Don't tell any quarterback to do that. But 40 of those yards were on Bryce Young scrambles.

So you take that into consideration. Also you had the 148 yard big run by Miles Sanders. It's like okay, you did have the big chunk play. But alright, you ran consistently like 3, 4, 5 yards. Chubo hovered yesterday, 23 carries, 87 yards.

This averaged 3.8 yards per carry. So again, Chris Tabor, both things can be true. Don't be bad at pass blocking and still have a decent game running the ball. Or a good game running the ball.

Both things can be true. Alright, so that's the first thing on the Panthers. Second thing is the limited play making ability on this team. We talked about that contested catch that Bryce Young kind of under threw to the right sideline to DJ Chark.

He can't make a contested catch. Miles Sanders had his best play. Honestly, it was probably the best offensive play this season for the Carolina Panthers. That 48 yard run that Miles Sanders had. It's amazing when we can sit back and sit there and count on our hand the number of big plays that the Carolina Panthers have had this season. You had the Miles Sanders run, you had a 48 yard pass completion several weeks back to Hayden Hurst. I think it was the game against Chicago, that Thursday night game. And then you also had the long pass in the game against Seattle to DJ Chark.

Where as 47 yards ended up scoring a touchdown. The fact that you can count these number of plays on one hand and we're 13 games in, it's bad. Not good.

Not good at all. By the way, Carolina, I will say this, was pretty aggressive with play calling. They were taking shots down the field early in the game.

But you know what? I don't mind it. You're one and whatever, take shots down field.

I really don't mind at all. Bryce Young talked about the aggressive play calling. We just want to be aggressive. It was kind of a reaction of a little bit of how they're playing us too. And we want to be able to take what the defense gives.

We always want to have an aggressive mindset. And TB did a great job of dialing up some shots. We did a great job on the outside of winning and giving opportunities.

And I got to do a better job of executing. Okay, so there it is. Third thing on the Carolina Panthers from their loss yesterday, 28-6 to the New Orleans Saints. The Carolina Panthers are everyone's get right game.

Absolutely. They are the get right game for everyone else on their schedule. Because I thought going in like, you know, all right, Saints are, you know, Derek Carr's banged up. He's got like rib stuff. He's got, he was just, he was just cleared a concussion protocol.

Maybe you can find something, maybe. And you, Saints are like, hey, let's get, let's get after it boys. Let's go. Saints came into the game with one of the worst pass rushes in the entire NFL.

One of the worst. So there's a, there's a stat, obviously we know what sacks are in the NFL, right? But sometimes sack numbers can be a bit skewed in the sense that if you're trailing a lot in games, teams are going to be running the ball, less opportunities for sacks. Or if you're ahead, teams are trying to throw the ball to catch up, more opportunities for sacks.

So sometimes that number can be somewhat misleading, just the general total. So there's a stat out there called sack percentage. So it's the number of times you get a sack per every drop back for the opposing team. The Saints were 28th in the NFL in sack percentage, just over 5%.

So to paint the picture for you. So when the Saints are playing defense for every 20 times an opposing quarterback would drop back, the Saints would get one sack. One out of every 20. That's 5%. That's it. By the way, Carolina Panthers have a worse sack percentage rate.

I'll get into that in a little bit. So they came into the game averaging 1.8 sacks per game. 29th in the NFL. Saints had four. They had more than double their per game average in this one. I know one of those sacks came late when things were kind of already out of hand.

This game was already wrapped up. But they got four. More than double per game. More than double per game. The Saints got.

That everyone is the get right game. So yeah, Chris Tabor talked about, oh, they're running the ball. We ran for 200 yards blocking, you know, so blocking somebody. You still can't block anyone rushing the passer.

Still can't do that. Alright, let's get to the fourth thing here. This defense is good for the Carolina Panthers. It's a good defense. But they're far from great. They're good.

I'll say that again. This is a good defense. They are far from great. I know they've been banged up a bunch this season. They've dealt with a ton of injuries. And in terms of yards per game. They're top five in the NFL in terms of yards per game.

But yards per game really doesn't matter if you don't get stops in crucial areas. The Saints were three of four in the red zone yesterday. So four trips inside the Carolina Panthers 20 yard line for the New Orleans Saints.

Three times they came away with a touchdown. 75%. Carolina is next to last in the NFL in red zone touchdown percentage. So that's the percentage of times the opposing team scores a touchdown against the Carolina Panthers. When they enter the red zone. Carolina 31st in the NFL 72%. So right there at that three out of every four attempts. That's not really good.

Now I will say this. The defense constantly gets put in bad situations because the offense's inability to move the ball down the field. You know, often enough. So yeah, you get put in bad positions. But nonetheless, your defense in the red zone still gives up a lot of touchdowns. 2.8 offensive touchdowns per game allowed by this defense. 28th in the NFL. Panthers are 30th in the NFL in sack percentage at 5.04%. So basically one out of every 20 drop backs of the opposing team. Panthers get one sack. Last year they were 25th in the NFL at 5.69. Defense is good, but they're far from great. They don't get a lot of big plays.

They just don't have the guys to really do that. Which actually leads me to my fifth and final thing here about the Carolina Panthers and their 28-6 loss. Derek Brown had one heck of a game yesterday. That dude, one heck of a game. He's about to, he's in his fourth year. About to go into his fifth year. You gonna get this guy signed?

You gonna get a deal done with this guy? Because quality interior defensive linemen, hard to find. Like they're not, like yeah you can maybe get a guy that might be like a depth guy that can rotate.

But interior guys that can wreak havoc? Not easy to find in the NFL. There's a reason why this guy was a top 10 pick, Derek Brown. 10 tackles yesterday, even at an interception. Even at an interception yesterday, Derek Brown did. Just jumping up, realized he wasn't going to get to the quarterback or create any sort of havoc. Just gets his hands up, knocks the ball down to himself, gets an INT. Now the Panthers didn't do anything really with it. But nonetheless, still made one heck of a play.

But someone that makes the, just kind of boggles my mind a little bit. Brian Burns goes quiet quite a bit. Like watching Brian Burns is just, when's the last time that he actually, okay I know he didn't get any sacks yesterday. But if you want to be one of the upper tier, past rushers in the NFL, you need to be more disruptive. And when's the last time you actually saw like on a third down in like 7, Brian Burns on a pass rush. Maybe doesn't get to the quarterback but draws a holding penalty. I hate to say this, you sort of forget that he's out there from time to time. Yeah, like oh there he is.

There's number 0. Like when's the last time you actually saw him do that? The Carolina Panthers only have one, we talked about the limited play making ability on this team. Carolina Panthers have one strip sack.

So a strip sack, so you sack the quarterback and you force the fumble on the exact same play. Carolina Panthers have one this season. One strip sack the entire season. And it came on the third play of the game week one against the Atlanta Falcons.

Because the Panthers started that game on defense. Brian Burns comes around the edge on third down. Sacks Desmond Ritter.

Ritter fumbles the ball but falls right on top of it, does Ritter. So he didn't even get a turnover off of it. That's the only time the Carolina Panthers have sacked the quarterback and caused a fumble the entire season.

The entire season. And it was on the third play of the game. I'm not saying that Brian Burns has to have like 16 of those over the course of the season. But you got to be more of a threat to do those things. You have to be more disruptive in the backfield. Even if you don't, like I said, even if you don't get to the quarterback. Either you're drawing penalties against the offensive line. Or you're forcing the quarterback to flush out of the pocket so other guys can get sacked.

People say well there's not really a whole lot around him. That was the healthiest the defense has really been all season since week one. Chin is back even though they don't really use him a whole lot. J.C. Horne was back. Von Bell, Xavier Woods, Dante Jackson, your whole secondary is back. The only person you're really missing was Shaq Thompson. That's really the only person you're missing was Shaq Thompson.

I think Deshaun Williams was out too. He hasn't done really much of anything this season either. So my point is that even if the other guys around him aren't either available to play. Or aren't being as productive. He still needs to find ways to be disruptive as well.

And he's not really doing that. Because you would think with Derek Brown inside. Okay if you're going to chip and double team on Burns. Well that would free up Frankie Lou Fu to do more. Or maybe if Derek Brown is getting double teamed. Are you going to double team Burns as well?

I don't know. It's just he needs to be more disruptive of a player. And I think if he wants to be in terms of the guys we talk about with the Max Crosby's and the Bosa's and the Watts and the Garrett's. If he wants to be anywhere near that level. He has to be more disruptive as a player. If he wants to be anywhere. P-U-L-S-E.com