Turnover issues changed the game plan, put Panthers in must-pass mode

Since 2011, the beginning of head coach Ron Rivera’s tenure in Carolina, the Panthers are 67-5-1 when they either have fewer turnovers than their opponent or are even.

They’re 9-31 when they turn the ball over more than their opponent, including Sunday’s 23-17 loss, when the Panthers had three turnovers in a 15-minute span in the first half against Washington.

Carolina has had five turnovers in the past two weeks while forcing just three (and none against Washington on Sunday). They are essentially a 63-yard field goal away from being 0-2 during that span.

Carolina also got a fortuitous bounce that the special teams unit was able to capitalize on for a touchdown in Week 5 against the New York Giants.

But no such luck on Sunday against Washington, even when they made big plays to try to force turnovers.

Julius Peppers strip-sacked quarterback Alex Smith, but offensive lineman Trent Williams recovered it for an 8-yard gain that put Washington into field goal range.

That’s just the way the NFL works, some weeks.

Hey, rookie...

Sunday was a hard lesson in young player development, too. Receiver D.J. Moore seemed to get out all of his “rookie mistakes” at once, fumbling twice in a span of three touches.

The first was on a punt return and was recovered by Washington, which scored a touchdown on its next play. The second was punched out by former Panthers cornerback Josh Norman as Moore ran after a catch.

“It’s a young guy made a couple of mistakes,” Rivera said Monday. “He’s competing, trying to make things happen. Through experience, he’ll learn. When you’re in traffic, you have to keep the ball high and tight and put the other hand on it.”

Veteran tight end Greg Olsen said rectifying the errors is about staying even-keel despite them. It’s possible to over-correct, he said, and the Panthers want to avoid that.

“I think it’s a very fine line,” he said. “I think sometimes when you try so hard to not make mistakes, so hard to protect the ball, you get very conservative and very tentative. That’s not the answer either.

“You have to let guys like D.J...You have to let these guys run natural. Break tackles. Fight for extra yards. That’s who they are, that’s what they do. If you try to take that away from them it limits them as players. It’s a very fine balance. You want to emphasize what they do well, and with a guy like D.J. that’s to run after the catch...While also emphasizing that we’ve got to protect the ball.”

Carolina kept going back to Moore, who rallied well after his mistakes with five touches for 77 yards.

Change in the plan

When Carolina trailed 17-0 in the first half on Sunday, the team’s game plan and what they were able to do dramatically changed.

Playing from behind means teams must rely more heavily on the pass. Newton threw 40 times on Sunday, just the 13th time in his career in which he’s thrown the ball 40 or more times (his career high is 52 attempts against Philadelphia in 2017) but the second time he has done so this season. His record when throwing 40-plus attempts is 3-9-1.

He completed 67.5 percent of his pass attempts on Sunday.

“It just changes your approach,” Rivera said. “At one point, being down 17 points, now you’re in a different kind of mode. And so some of the things that you may have thought about doing originally or earlier are no longer relevant. And you’ve got to work your way back.”

After beginning the game with four carries in the first drive, Christian McCaffrey had just four more through the rest of the game. Additionally, running back C.J. Anderson played only one snap.

Down six points at the end of the fourth quarter, Carolina drove to the Washington 16 with 47 seconds on the clock and had two timeouts remaining.

Olsen said Monday that he “would have bet his life” that the Panthers would score to cap the drive.

Three passing plays were called with 5 yards needed for a first down, but they all fell incomplete.

Rivera declined to discuss the three plays on Sunday night after the game.

Monday, he said the targets to receivers Christian McCaffrey, Devin Funchess and Jarius Wright in turn were “part of the reads” of Newton.

“The play calls give the quarterback some options, and he’ll go through his progression,” Rivera said. “So as we go through it, part of it is execution and maybe we could have made a different call. But those plays had opportunities. When you get a chance to watch the tape, you’ll see them.”

Talking about the weather?

Rivera also brought up the weather in practice the past two weeks when he was asked about how the team can limit turnovers.

“The hard part is that we’ve also had to deal with some pretty inclement weather the last couple of weeks,” he said. “Secondly, those are things that are going to happen in games. ... Those things happen. It’s part of the fortunes of football. We’ll continue to practice protecting the football, we’ll continue practicing trying to take the football away.”

Olsen said flat-out that he didn’t think the bad weather and correspondingly adjusted outdoor practices affected how the team played on Sunday.

“The reality is, we played bad,” he said. “At this level, it doesn’t matter if you fly cross-country, if you fly to Europe. No one cares. No one cares that we don’t have a practice facility, no one cares if you have a short week, nobody cares if you’re on the road back-to-back.

“Nobody cares.”

This story was originally published October 15, 2018 at 4:44 PM.