For the Panthers to be good, the ball must be in Christian McCaffrey’s hands
If there’s one thing that’s true about the Carolina Panthers, it’s that Christian McCaffrey can ball.
And while it appeared like the Panthers forgot about him Sunday in the second quarter, and on fourth-and-one near the 50-yard-line with less than two minutes left, he was a huge reason the Panthers kept it close against the Raiders.
McCaffrey, who was an All-Pro in 2019, rushed for 96 yards on 23 carriers and had two touchdowns in the 34-30 loss.
His three-yard touchdown run with 12:32 left in the fourth quarter cut the Raiders’ lead to 27-22. It was his second score of the day. His first was a six-yard rush in the first quarter. He broke through a hole and bounced off Raiders safety Johnathan Abram on his way to the end zone.
It was when the Panthers went away from him that they struggled. The Panthers had two consecutive three-and-outs to open up the third quarter, meanwhile, allowing the Raiders to extend its lead to two touchdowns.
McCaffrey had seven games with 90 or more yards in 2019, including six 100-yard rushing games, and four games with at least two rushing touchdowns.
Carolina was 4-3 in 2019 when he had 90 or more yards, and 2-2 when he had two or more rushing touchdowns. He was one of the few bright spots for the team last season and finished fourth in the league in rushing yards with 1,394.
While McCaffrey played well, the game still ended in a loss, and had the head coach wondering whether he made the right decision by not going to his best weapon on fourth-and-one with the game on the line.
“That’s something that I’ll have to think about walking away from this,” Panthers coach Matt Rhule said.
The Panthers were at their best when they went to McCaffrey. And they struggled when they did not. He was targeted only four times from quarterback Teddy Bridgewater and caught three passes for 38 yards. This is after catching 116 passes for 1,005 yards in 2019.
When asked whether there was a conversation about getting him more touches in the fourth, McCaffrey said he wasn’t sure.
Offensive coordinator Joe “Brady is a heck of a coach and he’s going to put the ball where it needs to go, and everybody goes in on Monday and looks at what they can correct from players to coaches, and that’s all we can do,” McCaffrey said. “It’s not about who gets the ball, it’s about moving the ball forward.”
This is the first NFL season for Rhule and Brady.
Carolina ran it with McCaffrey eight times in the fourth quarter. He also caught one fourth-quarter pass. When the Raiders loaded the box to stop McCaffrey, Bridgewater found wide reciever Robby Anderson open for a 75-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to take 30-27 lead.
McCaffrey deflected a question when asked if he was surprised he didn’t receive the handoff on the fourth-and-one with less than two minutes left.
“I don’t think it matters if I was surprised or not,” McCaffrey said. “It was a play we scored before, we’ve ran before and had success. It doesn’t matter. It happened and we’ve got to move on.”
Still, McCaffrey said there were positives to take from the loss, including taking a brief lead in the fourth after being down two touchdowns.
“It definitely hurts, but I definitely see a lot of positives and to correct the negatives moving forward,” he said.
This story was originally published September 13, 2020 at 6:40 PM.
