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!
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