Analysis of Panthers OT Matt Kalil’s performance: Is he worth the money? Can he be?

Nine months to the day that left tackle Matt Kalil signed with the Carolina Panthers in free agency, he will play his former team of five years, the Minnesota Vikings.

Nine months to the day that Kalil put ink to a contract that is slated to earn him $55.5 million (with $25 million guaranteed) over the next five years, the highest dollar amount for a free agent acquisition in the history of the franchise, it’s still popular to wonder whether he is worth it.

Sometimes, Kalil plays well.

How can you tell?

He goes unnoticed.

Sometimes, Kalil plays poorly.

How can you tell?

He really, really gets noticed – usually at the expense of quarterback Cam Newton and the Panthers offense.

“If I make a bad play, everyone is on me,” Kalil said Thursday. “But if I play well, nobody says anything. So, that’s the kind of stuff I have to deal with, but it doesn’t really get to me ...

“Usually you don’t want your name to get called.”

Geoff Schwartz, an 8-year NFL lineman who now is a writer, analyst and radio/podcast personality for ESPN, SiriusXM and SBNation, was Kalil’s Vikings teammate when Kalil was a rookie. He has watched the 2017 version of Kalil closely.

“(He has) one or two plays a game, where you’re just like, ‘Ughhhh.’ It’s just not good,” Schwartz said. “And when you pay premium money, especially for a left tackle, you just expect them to never have mistakes.

“And it’s not like Matt is bad at the whole game. And it’s obviously not every game. But there are games where he’s had one or two plays where you’re just like, ‘That’s just not very good.’

“And I think those stand out because offensive linemen, things are magnified – especially if they hit the quarterback, or there’s a sack/fumble. Those are plays that people remember when they evaluate a guy.”

Comeback kid

Kalil essentially watched the 2016 season go by while on his couch healing from surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip.

Plenty of time to think.

Plenty of film to watch.

Ryan Kalil, Carolina’s 11-year Pro Bowl center and Matt’s older brother, said that Matt watched his tape in the offseason with the intention of being honest with himself, and fixing what needed to be fixed.

He was the Vikings’ first-round pick in the 2012 NFL draft, made the Pro Bowl that year, and then things seemed to go south.

“He, for some reason, got a bad stigma in Minnesota and that kind of stuck with him nationally,” Ryan said.

Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer said on a conference call this week that Matt Kalil’s promise stalled because of injury (and that Minnesota tried to re-sign him last spring).

Kalil agreed this week that he had been playing hurt “the past few years,” and that his former teammates would probably see “a different guy than they’re used to” on Sunday, but also alluded to needing to rebuild his confidence by the end of his five-year stint with the Vikings.

“It’s not about proving anybody wrong,” he said. “It’s about living up to my ability and what I can do. I battle myself every day to be the best I can be. I think a lot of times when I struggled, it was just me getting in my (own) way mentally. I think that’s kind of long gone, and from a confidence standpoint I feel better than ever.”

The confidence will help as Kalil uses his athleticism – something that attracted the Panthers to him in free agency – but consistency is still needed to fix some glaring mistakes. Bad ones.

As he settled into his role with the Panthers, the errors especially came early in the year. Kalil has given up 35 pressures through 13 games as well as five sacks, according to Pro Football Focus. The bulk of his errors spanned weeks two and three, during which he gave up 10 pressures and four sacks.

But head coach Ron Rivera and offensive coordinator Mike Shula noted this week that the team hasn’t had to slide protection to his side to help as much as they did in the past. Rivera said he is pleased with Kalil’s athleticism, and with his improvement in pass protection.

And while Shula admitted Kalil “has to get better,” he also said the left tackle has brought stability the Panthers didn’t have last season as they shuffled tackles around in the absence of starter Michael Oher.

“I’m thrilled that we have him. We’re lucky to have him,” Shula said. “We’re not sitting there every week saying, ‘We have to, by scheme, continue to constantly give our left tackle help.’ I’m not saying we had to do that all the time last year. But we feel like we’ve got a good matchup for most weeks going in there with him.”

Taking some getting used to

During training camp, Kalil mentioned run game coordinator John Matsko as a reason he came to Carolina in free agency.

“‘He’s the first guy I played for that demands excellence from his offensive line room,” he said, leaving, of course, the implication that that demand was not in place in Minnesota.

Ryan seemed to imply that the Vikings weren’t a great fit for his brother, either.

“I know he’s battled injuries in the past and he’s been on a couple teams that weren’t great,” he said. “The combination of those two things doesn’t always work out in your favor, but he’s done a great job of being a professional and handling adversity.”

Kalil said this week that having Matsko around has helped him with his technique. Left guard Andrew Norwell, who lines up next to Kalil every snap, said Kalil comes into the building before “pretty much everyone” to study and prepare through the week, “to get himself right.” Norwell added that nobody else on the team prepares in the manner in which Kalil does.

There’s a lot to learn.

Rivera said earlier this season that Kalil has had to make a lot of adjustments to play left tackle in Carolina’s system, starting with getting a feel for the quarterback and how he drops back to pass.

“It does really come down to Cam’s style of play,” Schwartz said.

“Cam typically drops a little bit deeper than most quarterbacks. Even if you go back to when Jordan Gross was the left tackle, he’d talk about Cam dropping something like 11 yards, which is really deep. You want your quarterbacks typically 9.5– 10 is even pushing it. ... Dropping to the certain depth really messes with the angles of an offensive tackle. ... That’s something that takes a long time to get used to, and quite honestly, I don’t think you can ever really get used to that. But that’s who Cam is, that’s not a knock on him. He’s a big quarterback, so his five-step or three-step drop is just a tad longer than other guys’.”

Schwartz added that adjusting to the movement of a dual-threat quarterback within the pocket itself may lead to more holding calls.

“You’re blocking a guy and Cam runs outside of you, and you don’t know he’s there, and you hold him,” Schwartz said. “I mean, happens to everyone. Those are kind of things that go into getting used to playing with Cam Newton.”

Making a choice

By the very nature of his contract, the Panthers clearly believe that Kalil is an investment.

But this was also clearly a decision borne of some necessity, after what Rivera called “catastrophe” along the line last year. Oher spent most of the season trying to recover from a concussion, and Carolina played two different tackles out of position at left tackle. The 2017 NFL draft also did not offer an option who would be starter-ready for a team that looked, after free agency and the draft, like it was ready to make an immediate playoff push.

“When you’re in a situation where you need a left tackle, and you enter free agency, that’s a position you have to fill. It’s not like there are a lot of options there,” Schwartz said.

In fact, the only truly viable option for Carolina at the time was Andrew Whitworth, 35, who signed a three-year deal with the Rams and is having a great season.

“They were in frantic need to get a tackle,” said Schwartz. “And they chose the young tackle with a ton of upside, who has been a Pro Bowler, whose brother plays on the team. And you have to pay for that position. You have to go out and spend the money for that guy. If you don’t solidify that position, then you set your team back. Look what happened last year with not putting someone in there who was capable.”

But is he worth $55.5 million?

It might take a little longer to answer that. And a little more consistency at the position.

Maybe it’s time to change the question from “was Kalil worth it” to “can he be worth it?”

Either way, Kalil is truly in an unenviable spot.

“He picked a hell of a position to play,” Ryan Kalil said. “Because that would not be first on my list of positions to play. You have to have some thick skin to play at that position, because week in and week out, you play against the best of the best.”

This story was originally published December 9, 2017 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Analysis of Panthers OT Matt Kalil’s performance: Is he worth the money? Can he be?."