Panthers rookie Will Grier prepares for 1st NFL start under less-than-ideal circumstances
From the very beginning, Will Grier’s life has been intertwined with the Carolina Panthers.
He was born on April 3, 1995, in Davidson. Exactly six months later, on Sept. 3, 1995, the Panthers played their first regular-season game.
They basically grew up together.
Raised in Charlotte, Grier remembers owning six different Steve Smith Sr. jerseys at one point in his childhood. Becoming a huge Panthers fans was his destiny. It was inescapable.
Now, the rookie quarterback is set to make his first career NFL start, and he’s wearing Panthers blue.
The whole setup could make for a perfect movie script — if the stakes were a bit higher. Neither the Panthers nor their opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, will be making the playoffs this year. They each have losing records — the Panthers are 5-9 and the Colts 6-8. And the Panthers are on a six-game losing streak.
So, the situation Grier is stepping into is not perfect. But it is exciting, nonetheless. Because similar to how they began together almost 25 years ago, the future of both the quarterback and his team will start being shaped by this game.
The first since Cam Newton
After a tumultuous ending to the start of his college career at Florida, Grier impressed many in his second season at West Virginia, finishing fourth in the Heisman voting. He completed 67 percent of his passes and threw 37 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
He even caught the eye of fellow Charlotte native Perry Fewell, who is now the Panthers interim head coach but was then defensive backs coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
“I saw him and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a hometown boy,’ ” Fewell said. “My chest puffed out, I was proud, and I was bragging, obviously.”
He also was brought to the attention of Panthers quarterbacks coach Scott Turner, who is now the team’s offensive coordinator. Turner and other members of the Panthers staff talked with Grier throughout the draft process. They spent significant time with him at his Pro Day and, as Turner said, “that’s when you really try to get a feel for the person and the player.”
“We got around him and just felt comfortable with the type of person he is,” Turner said. “I talked about his demeanor. This game is hard and this league is hard, and if you’re going to react to every little thing that happens, you’re going to have no chance of making it. You kind of have to stay even keeled, and that’s just the type of person he is.”
The Panthers hadn’t drafted a quarterback since they selected Cam Newton with the first overall pick in 2011 . So why this guy? What made the Panthers want to take a chance on Grier, a player who some critiqued for a perceived lack of arm strength?
“When you find a guy you like and you have a chance to get him and to help the depth at the most important position on the team, arguably, then I think you have to do it,” general manager Marty Hurney said after the selection. “We like Will. I think he’s got plenty of arm strength, just to start off, his arm strength is not an issue. I think he’s a timing passer. I think he’s got an ‘it’ factor. … I think he’s a very talented quarterback, who we had a chance to get with the 100th pick in the draft.”
Of course, looking back at that post-draft news conference is a reminder that Grier was supposed to be Newton’s backup this year, not second-year undrafted free agent Kyle Allen. But Grier had a rocky preseason, completing 55.7 percent of his passes, throwing two touchdowns and three interceptions and being sacked seven times in four games.
So Grier started the regular season as the team’s third-string quarterback. He watched from the sidelines, with his beanie always on his head, as Allen took over for an injured Newton in Week 3 and led Carolina to four straight wins. And he watched as the team lost seven of its next eight and struggled to put away close games in falling to 5-9.
“I think he’s got a good head on his shoulders, a good perspective on everything, I thought he handled the rest of the season really well for a young guy that was a high draft pick to come in here and, obviously, we all know what unfolded,” tight end Greg Olsen said of Grier. “He didn’t skip a beat, he handled it like a pro and he waited his time and now the opportunity is here, you’ve got to make the most of it.”
The opportunity
With two games left and the playoffs out of the picture, it’s his turn. For a guy in his rookie season, there’s a lot of talk about Grier “being a professional.” Allen, of course, put on an impressive performance in his first career start against the Saints in Week 17 last year. On Sunday, we’ll find out if Grier can do the same.
So why now? Many felt, with the team out of playoff contention and Newton’s injury causing an unknown future at quarterback,Grier should have been playing sooner. Why not get as expansive a look at your third-round pick as you can?
The Panthers actually decided a few weeks ago that Grier should get some snaps. But they chose to wait until Week 16, partly because the game is on the road where the pressure and the spotlight are a little less intense.
“It’s not as much pressure (as) when you’re coming into the hometown stadium and you’ve got the city of Charlotte behind you as well as the Carolinas and you’re making your first start,” Fewell said. “You feel the pressure, obviously, if you’re starting your first game at home, that’s a factor no doubt.”
With Allen also being young and needing as many reps with the first-team as possible, this week in practice has been Grier’s only chance to lead that group since the season began. However, competing for the backup job gave him increased opportunities with them in the offseason.
“The thing that Will has the advantage of is, over OTAs and training camp, he did get reps with the first team because he and Kyle were competing to see who the backup was. So we were rotating those guys and Cam would sit out every once and a while,” Turner said. “Although it wasn’t a ton, it’s more than a normal guy would have in this situation. He’s got to draw back on those and he’s got to make the most of the reps he’s got in practice this week.”
Turner would be smart to take advantage of Christian McCaffrey — the league’s leader in scrimmage yards (2,121) — and run the ball often, as well as using him as a security blanket in the passing game. At West Virginia, Grier was known for throwing the deep ball often. He will have a tough challenge to do that behind an offensive line that is tied for the second-most sacks given up this season (51) and with a group of ball catchers that has tied for the fourth-most dropped passes in the NFL (29).
Turnovers were a major issue for Allen, and the Panthers are tied for the third-most in the NFL (29).
On the other side, the Colts pass defense certainly got some negative attention last week for its performance against Drew Brees during his record-setting evening on Monday Night Football. But giving up big passing yardage has been the rule for the Colts this year rather than the exception and is likely part of the reason this game was targeted for Grier’s first start.
The Colts allow 249.8 passing yards per game (21st) and have just 33 sacks (21st). They have allowed an average of 390.5 passing yards over the past two games. But perhaps the most positive sign for Grier is that the Colts have allowed opposing passers to complete 70.9 percent of their attempts, second-highest in the NFL (Cardinals).
Grier will be the ninth rookie quarterback to start in the NFL this year. The four quarterbacks selected before him have all started at least one game.
Grier did say this week has felt shorter than most. The pressure is high on so many levels for the 24-year-old. On top of everything, Carolina is in danger of matching its seven-game losing streak from last year.
There’s a lot going against him Sunday. It’s not a perfect world where he’s being put in the best position possible to succeed. Still, no matter what happens against the Colts, Grier will be a part of the Panthers’ future. Sunday won’t be a reflection of what is to come, necessarily, just as Allen’s first career start a year ago wasn’t either.
“I just think we all don’t make this more than it is,” Olsen said. “It’s obviously his first start, there’s all those circumstances. But it’s also one game. He has a long future ahead of him. Hopefully, this is just the beginning. We can’t make this a referendum on every single thing he does, this is how he’s going to do it, both good and bad.
“I think we just need to take this for what it is, support him, surround him with a good plan, surround him with guys that are going to go do their job the right way and take as much off his plate as possible and then let him do his job.”
This story was originally published December 21, 2019 at 2:10 PM.
