How does the Panthers’ secondary measure success? With football’s most important stat

As head coach Ron Rivera put it, the Carolina Panthers secondary has been “in flux” since his arrival in 2011 — and the beginning of the 2018 season was no different.

The Panthers (5-2) introduced two new starters in cornerback Donte Jackson and safety Da’Norris Searcy this season, and another in safety Eric Reid after a concussion sent Searcy to injured reserve. After some growing pains in its first two weeks, Carolina’s most-used secondary of Jackson, Reid, James Bradberry, Mike Adams and Captain Munnerlyn appears to have gelled.

Rivera said his teams’ defenses come into place “as the secondary solidifies.” Now that they’ve played more games with their newest starting secondary than without, history says the Panthers are poised to improve.

“We’ve never started a season with the same defensive secondary in my eight years here. There’s been no consistency,” Rivera said before the team played Philadelphia. “We’ve been in flux in the secondary so I think a lot of (Carolina’s slow starts) has to do with eventually you come together and gel. Sometimes you gel a little faster but I think we’re pretty much on track.”

While Adams, Bradberry and Munnerlyn played together in each of the past two seasons and Jackson was able to build chemistry during training camp, Reid had to adjust on the fly.

But four games into his tenure, the secondary’s newest member says he feels almost completely acclimated. It’s starting to show up on the field, where he played a season-high 94 percent of the Panthers’ defensive snaps last week.

“I think I’m progressing. Conditioning is getting better, I’m learning the plays, learning how I fit into this defense and what my role is,” Reid said. “I’m hoping that I brought some veteran leadership, which is hard to do with all the veterans that we have on this team. So really my job is pretty easy. I just line up and do my job because most of the guys on the field know what they have to do as well.”

Adams, 37, downplayed the difficulty of joining a new team. Now in his 15th year in the league and second with the Panthers, the veteran safety said if everyone is working toward the same goal, the transition takes care of itself.

“This is football, we’ve been playing this our whole lives,” Adams said. “The guys that we’ve brought in — Reid, he’s not a distraction. He’s a great teammate. Even the two young guys that we added, they’re great. They’re receptive to learning, they’re doing everything right.

“We’re gelling, we get along fine because we’ve all got one goal. That’s the key, we’ve all got one goal, and that’s to win.”

The ‘obvious’ stat

Knee-jerk reaction, if someone asked you which stat most accurately measures a secondary’s success, you’d say passing yards allowed, right?

Carolina allows 255 yards per game through the air in 2018 — the 17th-best average in the NFL and the second-highest average through seven games under Rivera.

More often than not, Carolina’s defenses finish seasons better than they start. Excluding an 84-yards-per-game improvement in 2017, the Panthers on average improve against the pass by 8.5 yards per game over the final nine games of the season since 2011.

They regressed in three of Rivera’s seven full seasons, but improved by an average of 25 yards per game in the other four.

Translation? When these secondaries figure it out, they figure it out.

The difference between opponents’ season averages and their actual passing yards against the Panthers suggests Carolina’s secondary is trending in the right direction.

In Reid’s first game with the team, Carolina gave up a season-high 382 passing yards to the New York Giants — 107 more yards than the Giants average through the air. In the three games since, Carolina has held opponents to an average of 37 yards under their season averages.

That could be difficult to repeat against Tampa Bay, which has the second-most passing yards through seven games in NFL history.

“You just go out there to play your game. We’re not going out there too much worrying about statistics, or how much they do this or how much they do that,” Jackson said. “When you’re out there, you’re not really worried about what they’ve done against past opponents. The only thing you’re worried about is the play that you’re in right now and being where your feet are at.

“I think Sunday, we’re going to be where our feet are at and we’re going to be out there playing Panther defense and not really worrying about they did against previous teams.”

The more obvious stat

Rivera doesn’t use yardage to measure success, however. There are too many variables, including scheme and game flow.

For example, the 156 passing yards Carolina allowed against Washington looks good on paper, but Washington’s 17-0 lead in the first half allowed Alex Smith to play it safe for most of the game. Conversely, Andy Dalton threw for 352 yards against the Panthers in Week 3 but also threw four interceptions as Cincinnati struggled to run the ball.

While he can recognize individual success, Rivera sticks to a far easier stat to quantify — wins.

“It’s tough because when the score is a certain way, the other team is going to throw the ball a lot. They’re going to get a lot of plays,” he said. “When it’s a game where it’s a play-action team that throws a lot of deep balls, certain things happen. I just think right now, watching the way we’ve played more so as a football team, with the wins and losses is really the only way to measure it.

“But you do see guys having success because for a while, you saw James Bradberry play very well matching up against the big No. 1 receivers. Then we had last week when we matched Donte with (John) Brown, we saw him have success. We’ve seen the safeties play good, we’re really pleased with what we’ve gotten out of both those guys and pleased with what we’ve gotten out of the young guys.

“I think, really, it just comes down to if we’re winning or not more than anything else.”

That doesn’t require deep research or next-gen stats. Carolina is 3-1 with its current starting secondary and has an opportunity to both improve its record and pass a litmus test Sunday against the Buccaneers (3-4) and their league-leading 376 passing yards per game.

But whether they allow 40 yards or 400 yards, it doesn’t seem like the Panthers are concerned with stats. Well, other than that one.

“Winning. That’s success, winning,” Adams said. “This is a team game. If we get no picks and we’re 16-0, I’ll take that all day.”

The less-obvious stat

Adams’ heart is in the right place but if winning is the end, turnovers are the means. Beyond wins and losses, Carolina’s defense prides itself on taking the ball away.

Its secondary, especially.

“We want to get takeaways, that’s why we call ourselves Thieves Avenue,” Bradberry said. “We want to steal the ball away and give it back to our offense. Right now, we’re doing a pretty good job, we’re getting interceptions every game or almost every game. That’s pretty much how we measure (success).”

The Panthers rank eighth in the league with nine interceptions. Their interception rate of 3.5 percent puts them on pace for 21 by year’s end — and both stats equal the second-best marks in their respective categories under Rivera. The Panthers are a safe bet to add to their total against Tampa Bay, which leads the league in interceptions as well as passing yards.

In Week 8, the Panthers’ offense proved a point by bullying the NFL’s No. 1 defense. It could be their defense’s turn this week.

This story was originally published November 2, 2018 at 11:30 AM.