Panthers’ ugly identity eclipsing explosive potential of an offense predicated on speed

We are 12 weeks in to the Carolina Panthers’ season, and it’s time to face it.

Their identity as a team is one that hops beautifully over a puddle, only to trip and fall in the mud behind it.

With a 30-27 loss to the Seahawks on Sunday, the Panthers have lost three straight games and control of their playoff destiny.

That is how it has been all season, as mistake after mistake has hobbled the Panthers’ progress and kept their “destiny” slipping through their fingers.

“We show a lot of flashes,” quarterback Cam Newton said after the game, “but at the same time, we miss a lot of layups.”

Sunday, the Panthers put up 476 yards of offense and averaged 8.1 yards per play, only to come away with 27 points. They left 22 red-zone points on the board and converted only three third downs in eight attempts. Placekicker Graham Gano missed a go-ahead 52-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, and Seattle marched back to kick the game-winner courtesy of a 43-yard catch by David Moore against Captain Munnerlyn.

And chunk plays in the air killed Carolina’s momentum throughout the game. Each cornerback — Munnerlyn, James Bradberry and reserve corner Corn Elder — gave up at least one pass of over 30 yards. Elder’s was a touchdown.

Those mistakes held Carolina’s stars back.

Newton was perfect in the first half. That is not a typo.

He hit all 14 of his 14 pass attempts for 159 yards and a touchdown. He also ran for 25 yards on five attempts. Newton finished the game 25 of 30 for 256 yards, a touchdown, an interception and a 110.6 passer rating.

In fact, Newton has had a passer rating of over 100 in six consecutive games, which is tied for the NFL’s fourth-longest streak since 2008. Yet the Panthers are 3-3 in that time.

Panthers, hop over puddle. Meet mud.

And it’s a shame, too. Newton is having statistically the best year of his career. His efficiency and his ability as a runner have been complemented by running back Christian McCaffrey’s explosiveness all year.

Sunday, McCaffrey became the first player in franchise history to have 100 rushing yards and 100 receiving yards in the same game. He caught all 11 of his targets for 112 yards and a touchdown, and he rushed for 125 yards on 17 attempts with a touchdown. He had 237 yards from scrimmage on 28 touches, averaging nearly 8.5 yards per touch.

He and Newton moved rhythmically and explosively in tandem, combining for 300 of Carolina’s 461 yards of offense.

“When we click, it’s a thing of beauty,” Newton said after the game of the team’s identity.

It’s true.

But can Carolina stop tripping over itself long enough to actually see where this offense can take them?

The future

With 6-foot-4 No. 1 receiver Devin Funchess out with a back injury, Carolina went small with its personnel, using a receiving corps that, tight end Greg Olsen aside, all measured under 6 feet tall.

And they also went very, very fast.

It was like a whirring planetarium, with Newton and McCaffrey the centerpoints. And around them orbited DJ Moore, who played every receiving position and had eight catches on nine targets for 98 yards, Jarius Wright, who rotated with McCaffrey in the slot and caught both his targets for 25 yards, and Curtis Samuel, who caught his sixth touchdown pass on his 23rd touch of the season.

Each receiver executed his exact role, whether it was large or small, and with Newton as on-point as he was, it worked like a dream.

They could also get creative, because oftentimes their personnel grouping featured four versatile players: Newton, McCaffrey, Moore and Wright.

One such play was drawn up particularly gorgeously, a simple twist on the reverse and double-reverse Carolina has used with such success in previous weeks. Seattle was almost certainly prepared for those plays, but not this one.

Newton had McCaffrey and Moore lined up in the backfield, and faked the handoff to McCaffrey. Then, he started to run to the left and Moore ran with him as Samuel, lined up wide on the left, ran to the right. Newton faked a pitch to Moore on his left, and then discreetly reversed to Samuel, who bit off 14 yards. That helped set up his 7-yard touchdown catch two plays later.

Not one receiver had an all-out drop. Their explosive plays hit a second gear of all-around speed that is fresh for Carolina, after having been missing from the offense since the Panthers let Ted Ginn Jr. walk in 2016.

With Funchess a free agent this spring, Sunday’s game looked like the future. The Legion of Zoom.

Carolina showed it to us very clearly on Sunday afternoon.

But they also showed us the present, too, and that’s the problem.

“We’ve got a bright future ahead of us,” said Wright. “Unfortunately you have to live in the ‘right-now.’”

Self-destructive tendencies

What keeps eclipsing the promise is that the Panthers have become known for self-destructing.

And on Sunday, whether it was poor playcalling in the red zone, not getting the fourth-down spot call, missing a huge field goal attempt or a porous secondary, the Panthers were self-destructive as Newton and McCaffrey, and a young rotation of playmakers did everything they could to keep their feet out of the mud.

The future offense will run through Newton and McCaffrey. They will be complemented by speed and precision. And they can run this offense nearly perfectly, as some of Sunday’s drives showed.

They can, themselves, even be “perfect.”

And still, the Panthers can lose.

If Carolina wants to be a great football team, it has to stop hobbling itself.

And that is something that should keep this staff up at night.

Because 12 weeks in, they haven’t figured out how to do it.

This story was originally published November 25, 2018 at 7:54 PM.