Posies, Pansies, & Panthers**

It is always hard being a fan of an NFL team in another NFL team market; it is even harder to be a fan of another team, when the home team is described as a dynasty of the most recent decade. However, through thick and thin, I will remain a Carolina Panthers fan and this Sunday, I was not only shouting from the mountain tops that I was a Panthers fan, I relished in it.

You may say it was only one win! But if you look at all the progress we made in two weeks, it is hard to believe that this is the same team that started off the season 0-5. We drove down the field with a passing game, which was obsolete before. This in turn opened up our running game. We didn’t turn the ball over nearly as much (although we did have some trouble with fumbles). And we didn’t repeatedly commit penalties that offset the progress that was made. We performed so well in fact that we have our QB nominated for the FedEx Air Player of the week. (Vote for him here) And we have our rookie WR David Gettis nominated for Rookie Player of the week. (Vote for him here)

Now my previous post was in regards to how Matt Moore should not have been made the starter, and although I had strong arguments for my opinion, I am glad that he was the leader to our first victory. I am not saying Jimmy Clausen would have let us down, but I believe John Fox and the staff made the correct call. I just wish he would have performed this well from the beginning.

I wanted to call out a few stats of the game:

MATT MOORE:
- 28/41 for 308 yards 2 TD/1 INT

DAVID GETTIS:
- 8 rec. 125 yards 2 TD

BRANDON LAFELL:
- 6 rec. 91 yards

JOHN KASAY:
- 3/3 with a 55 yard FG

OFFENSE:
- Over 300 yards passing
- almost 50% on third down conversions
- 22 First Downs

DEFENSE:
- moved from 5th ranked pass D to 4th allowing only 183 yards
- allowed only 15 first downs and only 30% on 3rd down conversions


As you can see we had a lot of good things to talk about, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we are entering week 8 and we just got the first W. So let’s take a slice of "humble pie" (as that home team of mine is always talking about) and get ready for the visit to St. Louis, they are not the same Rams that they used to be.

**You may be wondering why I labeled my blog this week "Posies, Pansies, & Panthers". It is a tribute to an inspiring co-worker who will be leaving the company that I work for this Friday. She will finish her 7 year career here and be moving to Miami to take on bigger and better things. Although my company will miss her in many ways, as she will miss Boston in return, I know that the one thing she will miss the most is the weekly Panthers update that I bring to the office. I only wish I had more time, because after three years of being here, I truly believe I was very close to turning her into a Carolina Panthers faithful. I wish you nothing but the best in your future endeavors; and just because you’re moving 1,505 miles away (according to Google maps) does not mean you have heard the last from me or of the Carolina Panthers.

Posies, Pansies, and Panthers, all names that could have described this team prior to week 7, but rolling into St. Louis, we are simply the Panthers. GO PANTHERS!!!

The Switch

No, I am not referring to the movie directed by Josh Gordan and Will Speck where Jennifer Aniston gets artificially inseminated. I am talking about the Carolina Panthers switching the starting quarterback once again. We are approaching week 7 (not even half way through the season) and we are about to embark on the third "switch" of the season.

I have defended the coaching staff (minus Jeff Davidson) throughout the last two seasons and the drama we have endured. However, I can not stand by and say that this is a good decision for our team.

Let's face it. We are not going to be making a Super Bowl run this season. Starting out at 0-5 has pretty much decided our destiny. So why pull the quarterback that was drafted to be the future of our team?

Because he is not winning?

Because he is making some bad decisions?

Because he is making turnovers?

These are all things that happen when you have a rookie quarterback. It happened with other rookie quarterbacks through the history of the NFL. John Elway completed less than 48% of his passes and he had twice as many INT's than touchdowns in his first season. Two seasons later, he led the league in yards and completions. Thankfully for Elway though, he didn't have a coaching staff that pulled him at each small sign of trouble. They let him play it out, learn from his mistakes, and get the experience needed that you will not find by the sideline.

So far this year, we have had two people start, Matt Moore and Jimmy Clausen, neither have shown great progress. However we can not continue to play them base on how well they have played for half of a game. If we continue to pull each quarter back at halftime, the fourth quarter, each week, we will continue to not improve because neither quarterback is getting the time needed to improve, not to mention the mental issues. How will either quarterback improve if they only play half a game at a time?

Here are some stats for the year.

JIMMY CLAUSEN:

43/91
454 yards
47.3 % Completion
1 TD

3 INT
52.2 Rating

MATT MOORE:

25/59

342 yards
42.4 % Completion
2 TD
6 INT
33.3 Rating

I understand we are looking for a win, but think about it. There is no logic to this move. They need to pick a quarterback and stick with him (unless injured, god forbid that we endure more complications), by this yo-yo affect being used, neither one will improve to become the quarterback that we need to lead this team. And by the stats above, my pick would be Jimmy Clausen.

With each week, it is getting harder to say, but here it goes, GO PANTHERS!

Week 5: Chicago Bears @ Carolina Panthers

My first rule of thumb when watching the Carolina Panthers on TV is to not make it personal. So many times I get extremely angry, frustrated, sad, mad, happy, depressed, excited, joyful, aggravated, or annoyed, usually all within a matter of minutes. This can not be good on my physical or mental health. So I start each game with a small pep talk to myself. This is a game, just a game, life will go on, and the outcome will not determine my mood for the rest of the day or week.

This week however was more difficult than others; I was unable to shrug this one off. You see I was born and raised in central Illinois, so the majority of my childhood friends, college buddies, and family are Chicago Bear faithful. So this week, out of all weeks, the game was personal. Sadly, I must report, it did not go as well as I would have hoped.

There were a few factors that were playing in the minds of the media, fans, and players prior to game. Chicago would be playing without their franchise QB, Jay Cutler and in his place starting Todd Collins. Todd Collins a veteran in the league had not started a game in three seasons. Good news for Carolina. Chicago was coming off a despicable loss on the road in New York against the Giants, the morale was down. Yet another piece of good news for Carolina. Lastly, Carolina was coming off a very strong performance against a very good offensive Saints team. It is beginning to look like a perfect storm for the Panthers and like we could get a win just before our bye week.

So what went wrong? Lets take a look at the stats below:

CHICAGO BEARS:

- 219 yards rushed

- alright Chicago didn't really do anything else that impressive, we were just that bad

CAROLINA PANTHERS:

- J.Clausen was 9/22 for 61 yards 0 TD/1 INT

- M.Moore was 5/10 for 35 yards 0 TD/2 INT

- 4 Fumbles

- 3/18 Third Down Efficiency

- 7 penalties

- 0 points converted from turnovers

- 0% Red Zone Efficiency

So if you go back one post, you can see how great our team had improved from weeks 1 & 2 to week 3. And from the stats above you can see how quickly we fell to THE worst performance of the season.

The game started off with Carolina winning the coin toss, we elected to defend first. Chicago opened up with a great punt return putting them in great field position. They scored on the drive and were up by a touchdown with less than two minutes run off the clock. Carolina received the ball and started out on our own 39 yard line. We had an impressive drive down the field with two breakout runs by DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. We were able to drive down to the Chicago 6 yard line, but were unable to put the ball in the enzone. We kicked a field goal and were down by four. At this point in the game, it seems as if the game will be a back and forth battle and a good defensive stop will determine the game. But this is all about to change.

We kick off to the Chicago -5 yard line (middle of enzone) and they run it out, Manning made it to the Chicago 32 yard line before getting brought down. The first play of the drive was a run for Matt Forte who took off for a 68 yard touchdown. Carolina is now down 14-3 with half of the first quarter still to go. I am still not sure how we did not prepare for such plays. Given that their starting quarterback was going to be out, we knew they would be relying on the run heavily throughout the game.

Carolina receives the ball back and on our first play, Jimmy Clausen fumbles the ball, we recover, but lose one yard on the play. On the third play of the drive, Jimmy Clausen throws an interception, to give Chicago the ball on the Carolina 27 yard line. (now in all fairness to Jimmy Clausen on this particular turnover, it was a fluke accident, it was tipped up and it happens to fall right into the hands of none other than Julius Peppers, however in the NFL a turnover is a turnover). But as you can tell by the drive above, just where this game is headed.

At this point, the game has taken a turn for the worse. Thankfully our defense had shown up to play and was able to hold them to only a field goal. This finally brings us to the end of the first quarter. Yes, you read right, the first quarter. The remainder of the game was a very un-thrilling match of Carolina's defense making big plays, to give the ball back to our offense, who in turn handed the ball back over to the Bears on a silver platter.

There are a couple of key points I wanted to discuss about this game more in particular. A couple of play calls on offense and the decision to pull Jimmy Clausen with less than four minutes to play are a couple of areas I am still scratching my head over.

We are at 4:23 left in the 2nd quarter, down 17-3. We have started with the ball on the Chicago 42 yard line. We need to only move the ball down the field 10-15 yards (at the very least) to give John Kasay a chance for a field goal. This is worse case scenario. Best case, we move the ball down the field and get a TD. This is the best field position we have had all day (by at least 20 yards). The first play called on the drive is a wild cat formation with Armanit Edwards, he throws to Gettis (rookie WR) and we lose six yards on the play. We are now at the Chicago 48. The next play called? Another wildcat formation to Armanti Edwards, because it worked so well the play before. This time instead of throwing he ran up the middle for seven yards. We are still out of field goal range and we are now at third down. Needless to say, the best field position we had, the chance to score some points before the half, and we blew it because we were trying to get tricky.

Jeff Davidson, our team is made up of a number of rookie players who are still adjusting to the systems in place. Our team has not been able to do well executing the every down plays, why would you call a these plays when we had great field position? Especially when we have D.Williams and J.Stewart who are obviously ready to go, given they had rushed for almost a fifty yards on a previous drive. There is no reason for this. We could have easily gone into halftime 17-6, if not 17-10.

The last point I wanted to discuss in this game was the decision to pull Jimmy Clausen in the fourth quarter with less than four minutes to play (3:36 to be exact). Clausen was having a rough day, not performing to the caliber he had in New Orleans the week prior. However, he will not learn to continue to fight if each time we yank him to put in Matt Moore. We must stay consistent and give him all the time in order to learn, develop, and gain the experience needed to be our future. A great article was put on the Carolina website, titled "Growing Pains", (I plan on posting in regards to this topic and article at a future date) but it states this point perfectly. Each rookie quarterback is going to lose a number of games before they win, it is inevitable. So why is the coaching staff not reading this and following this philosophy, we must learn not to handle him as if he is a porcelain doll, let him play and get the experience, win or lose.

It was a very painful loss to deal with, but I have two weeks to recover (thankfully), but as always GO PANTHERS!

Week 4: Carolina Panthers visiting New Orleans

After falling to a quick 0-3 record, the Carolina Panthers traveled to the Super Dome of Louisiana to visit the defending world champions, the New Orleans Saints. Going into the game it was believed that it would be a pretty one sided game; however there are a few factors that gave the Panthers and their fans some hope on the road. The Carolina Panthers have only lost twice to the Saints in the Super Dome since 2001 (minus the 2005 season when we played the Saints in Baton Rouge due to Hurricane Katrina, although we did win this game as well). We were competing against a depleted team that had just lost to a divisional opponent the Atlanta Falcons and the home team was down two of their top running backs, Reggie Bush and Pierre Thomas. So even though the landslide victory seemed immanent on this day for the home team. The Carolina Panthers and their fans knew that it would be a much closer game.

The Panthers did not disappoint this Sunday; yes, we ended up losing the game. But for the first time on this site, we will be focusing on all the improvements that we accomplished in this game.

Some stats to look at:

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS:
- Drew Brees 33/48 for 275 yards 1 TD/0 INT
- 3 Fumbles 2 Lost
- Red Zone Efficiency: 20% (1-5)

CAROLINA PANTHERS:
- Jimmy Clausen 11/21 for 146 yards 1 TD/0 INT
- 1 Fumble 1 Lost
- 2 Sacks 3 FF

Now we obviously know this was another loss for the Panthers, but I can not bear to bring up any of the negative aspects from this game because we played so well. This by far was the best game that we have had and the win was so close, I could almost taste it.

As you can see, Drew Brees continued to be Drew Brees; however with that said, our fifth ranked pass defense was able to hold him to only one touchdown and forced him to fumble the ball. In comparison our own rookie Jimmy Clausen was able to finally get a taste of what it is like to play in the professionals, he threw his first touchdown pass. And to top it off, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it... not one interception was thrown, NOT ONE! Which lets face it, this is one statistic that should pop out for every Panthers fan.



At this point we know that the Carolina Panther Defense has been on top of their game since the beginning of the season. And they have seemed to improve each week, but this game also was an improvement for our offense as well. We outscored the Saints with two touchdowns (obviously we did not outscore the Saints overall, we lost, just in the TD category) in the game and we had zero turnovers on offense. (the one lost fumble was on special teams on a punt return) Our offensive line was able to limit the Saints defense to a total of two sacks. This stat also reflects on our rookie quarterback making smarter decisions of getting out of the pocket, throwing the ball away when possible, and protecting the ball when he does go down.

Carolina ended up at the end of the day with yet another tally in the loss column; however the experience from the game, the lessons learned, and the improvements the rookies were able to accomplish in this game were undeniable.

0-4, but oh so close... and with that I say, GO PANTHERS!

Week 3: Cincinnati Bengals @ Carolina Panthers

Week 3: The Cincinnati Bengals (1-1) vist the Carolina Panthers (0-2) in hopes of continuing their winning momentum as well as improving the connection between TO and Carson Palmer, which has been having some trouble over the first two weeks, while the Carolina Panthers battle for their first win of the season.

Week 3 was similar to week 1 in many ways. The weather was windy and rainy, we continued to hand the ball over on offense, and we were unable to capitalize on the turnovers our defense were able to cause. Cincinnati came into this week with a big win against a tough Baltimore Ravens team and were a clear favorite to win the game. Once again our defense was able to shine and keep us within reach throughout the entire game, but in the end we were unable to come up with the victory.

The stats I want to focus on for this game:

CINCINNATI BENGALS:

- Carson Palmer was 19/37 for 195 yards 1 TD/2 INT

- Fourth Down Conversion Efficiency: 100% 2/2

- Fumbles: 1 Lost: 0

CAROLINA PANTHERS

- Jimmy Clausen was 16/33 for 188 yards 0 TD/1 INT

- Fourth Down Conversion Efficiency: 0% 0/2

- Third Down Conversion Efficiency: 18% 2/11

- Fumbles: 4 Lost: 3

This was the first start for rookie quarterback Jimmy Clausen. Although he had playing time in each game prior, this was the first game he started and finished. In comparison to previous quarterback performances, throughout the last couple of seasons, his stats for completions, touchdowns, and interceptions were acceptable for a rookie quarterback. He had a 49% completion rate (just 2% under Carson Palmers for the day) and he had one less interception. (more details on game stats can be seen here) One might ask, how did they lose this game with looking at these stats alone? The answer, Fumbles.

Since week 1, we have continually struggled with getting a smooth snap between the center (Ryan Kalil #67) and our quarterback (regardless of who the quarterback is).** When John Fox was asked about this in his press conference after the game, (full press conference can be seen here) he said that they practice on average 80 snaps a day (obviously on practice days only). So the fact that this is an issue throws up many red flags. This should be one of the simplest things that we do come game day. This leads to the overall protection of the ball. Until we are able to protect the ball and protect our quarterback in the pocket, we will continue to see issues in this area.

**On a side note, the center/quarterback exchange seems to have become an issue this year. So although it has been an issue for both M.Moore and J.Clausen, more than likely it is not the common denominator of Ryan Kalil.

Our Defense once again shined throughout this game and kept us in the game until the very end. They were able to get 2 interceptions and a sack on Carson Palmer. However, we continued with our issues from week 2 with allowing third and fourth down conversions to be completed. Cincinnati was able to convert twice on fourth down continuing their drive time and ultimately leading to points on the board. We must do better at putting pressure on the quarterback in situations like this and not allowing them to convert these downs.

Sadly another week has come and gone and another game was within our grasp has slipped away. Cincinnati has the potential of being an offensive nightmare with Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco; and although we were able to keep them in check, unlike our turnover rate, we were still unable to walk away with the "W". We have fallen to 0-3 with a tough two games ahead before our bye week. (New Orleans at New Orleans and Chicago at Bank of America Stadium)

Patiently waiting for win number 1, but as always, cheering GO PANTHERS!

Week 2: Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Carolina Panthers

Week 2: An early divisional opponent game, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-0) visit Bank of America Stadium to take on the Carolina Panthers (0-1).

After an extremely sloppy game in a rainy New York City, the Carolina Panthers return home to take on a division rivalry. Tampa Bay got a week one win by a margin of a field goal over the Cleveland Browns led by none other than our own Jake Delhomme. Now overall, this game was favored to be the first win for Carolina. Although we were not established in the quarterback position yet, Tampa Bay was a 3-13 team last year (this is throwing out the fact that each team that finishes last in the division wins the division in the following season), they had barely escaped with a win over the Cleveland Browns, and they too had not proven that their quarterback Josh Freeman was a legitimate threat. Sadly, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came into town and showed Carolina that these areas were of no concern and pointed out the areas that we still needed to improve on. They stole the first home game making them 2-0 for the first time since 2005 and made Carolina 0-2 for the second season in a row.

A few stats to look at from game 2.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS:
- J.Freeman was 12/24 for 178 yards 2 TD/0 INT
- TB Defense had 4 sacks
- Return Yards on Punts: 47 yards

CAROLINA PANTHERS:
- M.Moore was 6/16 for 125 yards 1 TD/1 INT
- J.Clausen was 7/13 for 59 yards 0 TD/1 INT
- CAR Defense had 0 sacks
- Return Yards on Punts: 8 yards


Once again, our quarterback situation has impacted the outcome of our game. As you can see from the stats listed above and the more detailed stats here, this is an area we continue to struggle with. However, this was once again a minor issue in comparison. As you can see Josh Freeman did not outperform our own QB's by much. I am not going to go into much detail on this particular aspect as many of you already know the details of this issue and I will post more in depth posts at a later date on this subject.


When it comes to Defense, I would rank Carolina as being in the top tier, they have areas they need to improve on, but as a whole they keep us in the game. If it was not for our defense, we would have lost the games by a larger margin than we have. Even with Charles Godfrey leading the league in interceptions. Our Defense still needs work. We are currently ranked 5th when it comes to pass defense, we only allow 182.4 yards passing per game in comparison to our rush defense allowing 134.4 (ranked 27th). Now I could be crazy, but usually teams that are very good in the run game have a great rush defense because they practice against some of the best running backs in the league. This seems to be the opposite for the Carolina Panthers. We have one of the best running back duos in the league yet we are unable to stop the run. We have one of the worst passing games in the league (ranked 31st). Two areas that we need to focus on is the rush defense as well as pressuring the quarterback. Sadly Tampa Bay was able to convert on a number of 3rd down conversions by allowing Josh Freeman to rush the ball for a first down. (4 rushes for 43 yards, the longest being 17 yards) We can not allow this to happen, especially on third down.

One of the large factors to our un-success is our bad field position. We are allowing the opposing team 47 yards on punt returns in comparison to our 8 yards. When you are continually starting behind the 20 yard line, you are allowing 4 sacks, and have one of the worst passing games in the league; it leads to the team starting 0-2.

Tampa Bay is not a bad team, but they are not amazing either. This was a very winnable game and thanks to Defense, we were able to stay in this game for the majority of the game. There are a number of areas that this team needs to work on; however we as fans must remember that this is a very youthful (rookie oriented) team and it will not change overnight. We are in a rebuilding phase (this means it could be a couple losing seasons) and sadly, the road of losing will continue before we are able to exit onto the road of success.

Be patient and as always, GO PANTHERS!

Week 1: Carolina @ New York Giants

Week 1 of the 2010 NFL Season for the Carolina Panthers was against the New York Football Giants in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

This game was not only the opening game of these two football programs seasons, but it was also the opening game for the G-Men's new stadium. The New Meadowlands Stadium opening game was very similar to final game in the old stadium a year prior (the NYJ actually had the final game played in the old stadium the following week). The Carolina Panthers was the visiting team and helped retire the old stadium when they beat the New York Giants in their last home game in the old stadium 41-9.

Going into this game both teams were regarded as being questionable, but were a considered possibly playoff contenders. The New York Giants were coming off a disappointing end to their 2009 season, where they had big hopes to go further than they did. The Panthers however were suprisingly on the opposite side of things, coming off a disappointing 2009 season but with a winning momentum that had led them to beat some of the best teams of the league. Sadly that momentum came to a screeching halt during this first week.

So stats to consider for the game:

NEW YORK GIANTS:

- Manning was 20/30 for 263 yards 3 TD/3 INT

- 118 yards rushing

- Red Zone Efficency 60% (3/5)

CAROLINA PANTHERS:

- Moore was 14/33 for 182 yards 1 TD/3 INT
- 89 yards rushing
- Red Zone Efficency 20% (1/5)

Now obviously there are tons of stats to this game and you can get more details on the stats of this game here. However I wanted to focus on these key stats for a specific reason.

The first stat that you see is regarding the quarterback position. A position that has been heavily scrutinized in Carolina for sometime. Now I am not going to get into the whole Jake Delhomme situation, that is for another post. But lets look at the quarterback position for this game, as some would say that Carolina has problems winning a game due to the lack of a franchise quarterback. Although I believe this plays into the situation, I do not believe this to be THE factor.

Eli Manning in this game made a total 6 more completions for a total of 81 more yards. I know, this additional completions and yards led to two additional touchdowns. But lets look at it this way, Eli Manning going into this game had a total of 87 NFL starts in comparison to Matt Moore's 8. I think it is safe to say that there should have been more than 81 yards and 2 touchdowns standing between these two. I am not saying that Eli Manning is not a quality quarterback and that Matt Moore should be considered on par with him; however I am saying that this is just one small problematic area that contributed to our loss, not the entire reason.

The second stat that I had shown was a rushing statistic. This is Carolina's bread and butter. It was just a season ago that "Double Trouble" had broken the record of two players from the same team rushing for over 1100 yards each in a single season. Yet we were unable to rush for over a 100 yards against the New York Giants between four running backs. Another part of this decline is because of the offensive coordinator's play calling. Unfortunately, as soon as we are down by a field goal or a single Touchdown, we abandon the running game all together and go to a pass game. Which is definitely not our bread and butter, as we only have one wide out that is anything to brag about. By abandoning this part of our game, we not only take away two of our biggest offensive weapons but we also limit the potential of our passing game. Now given our quarterback issues (listed above) would you not say that the play calling surrounding our QB should be better considered. I would say this is more of a contributing factor to our loss.

Lastly, we do not capitalize on our red zone possessions. We were only able to get any points on four of our trips in the zone. Now we lost this game by a total of 13 points, if we would have got three field goals, we still would have lost, but it would have been a completely different game. This one statistic makes the loss almost unbearable.

Carolina has started the season 0-1 and handed the Giants an opening day win on a silver platter. Never the less, as always, GO PANTHERS!

Double Trouble

I realize that I probably should have started this blog about 5 weeks ago, before the NFL season had started, but after reading some of the blogs posted by the Carolina Panther faithful, I decided to go ahead and start my own. I am in no way saying that this blog will be better than any others, as I do enjoy reading a few that I have come across. However, there is some that are quick to judge.

It wasn't too long ago when the phrase "Double Trouble" was used with Carolina because of our running game duo, the offensive threat that we were coming into town. Today, this phrase has taken on a new meaning. Sadly the only thing the offense has been able to capitalize on is turnovers and giving the opposing team better field position (ie. stupid penalties, lack of qb protection, ball protection, and bad play calling). Now I know that I said above that so many people are quick to judge, and well by this paragraph it sounds as if I am too. However there are many positives to this team as well.

I will be reviewing the first five games of the season in more detail throughout the next two weeks. I will also be making a few posts regarding our problematic areas, where we are in need of improvement, and what we seem to be doing right. Stay tuned.

And as always, GO PANTHERS!