Panthers makeshift offensive line continues to weigh down offense in loss to Falcons
The Panthers have made history this year.
They fired coach Ron Rivera before the season came to a close. Running back Christian McCaffrey is setting records left and right. The Panthers even came into Sunday leading the NFL in sacks (46).
But it’s the history that Carolina is creating for all the wrong reasons that have led to many of their offensive woes this year as showcased in the team’s 40-20 loss to the Falcons, dropping them to 5-8.
With three games to go, the Panthers have allowed 50 sacks, tied for the fourth-most in a single season in franchise history. The offensive line continues to be one of Carolina’s weakest areas, and Sunday it resulted in quarterback Kyle Allen getting sacked five times by the Falcons again. Against the Panthers, Atlanta has 10 sacks this season. Against everyone else they have played combined, they have 13.
Two of those sacks in Atlanta resulted in fumbles, one of which the Panthers lost.
“We ask (Allen) to protect the football. But we also ask our offensive line to protect the quarterback,” interim head coach Perry Fewell said. “I thought Kyle fought. I thought he did a really nice job of not hanging his head. He put together a really good two-minute at the end of half. … I’m going to look for the positive things that he did; we didn’t protect him as well as we should have.”
The team’s offensive line is a makeshift group, as it has been all season long, with left guard Greg Van Roten on injured reserve and rookie left tackle Greg Little dealing with an ankle injury after concussions kept him out for all but four games this year.
According to Pro Football Focus, the Panthers came into Week 14 tied for the third-worst pass blocking efficiency (with the Chargers), giving up the second-most pressures in the NFL (166).
Allen has been sacked three-plus times in nine games this season, tied with Arizona’s Kyler Murray with the most in the NFL this year, despite Allen only playing in 11 games.
Of course not all of the blame can be put on the offensive line. It’s on Allen, too, and the offensive play-callers.
“We go through a lot of drills as far as securing the football,” Fewell said. “We go through a lot of preparation as far as how to take care of the football. It happens. Those things happen. We just have to go back to the drawing board. We have to look at what we’re doing and see if we can do it better, teach it better and emphasize it better. Not only the players know, but all of you and the fans know that, hey, if we continue to turn the football over, not take care of it and do some of the things that we’re doing, we will not be successful.
“It’s my job to make us successful, and we’re going to find a solution to that problem. I don’t have that solution right now, but we’re going to find a solution to that problem.”
Offensive coordinator Scott Turner made his play-calling debut against the Falcons, and it was mostly much of the same. One significant note, however, is that McCaffrey had his fewest carries in a game this season (11).
Turner tried to spread the ball around to other ball carriers, but ultimately got away from running the ball with their best player in the second half. In the last two quarters of the game, McCaffrey, one of the league’s leading rushers, had just three carries.
Did the Panthers get begind in a hurry? Sure. But with an offensive line that has struggled to protect the quarterback, keeping, or at least trying to maintain the running game, is a necessity for this team.
“We were just down by so much that running the ball would just run the clock out,” Allen said. “So we wanted to get the ball down the field.”
Carolina’s offense got away from McCaffrey once again and the offensive line has struggled all season long to protect their young quarterback. Getting behind doesn’t mean an offense needs to pass the ball on every play.
The Panthers had many issues in their loss to the Falcons. Too many to count. But the makeshift offensive line that has been an issue all season-long continues to be the major problem for a sputtering offense.
This story was originally published December 8, 2019 at 7:48 PM.
