Team Player

In the last ten weeks, I feel as if I have let my team down. I know that I am not actually a part of the Carolina Panthers, but I feel like as a dedicated fan, that I am part of the team (as I am sure many fans feel the same way). I analyze the stats before and after a game, I look at the good calls, the bad calls, and what we did right and wrong. I act as if I am a coach, a player, hell, even a cheerleader at times. But this season, I feel like my first posts were constantly belittling the progress being made or ignoring the signs of future growth. Starting with this post I will be looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim that light may seem at times.

Sunday afternoon we (again, I am not part of the team, but lets just pretend) traveled to Tampa Bay to play another division rival. Of course they start the game by giving the amazing statistics (as in, stats that favored Carolina) of our organizations playing each other. The Bucs have not swept the Panthers in a single season since 2002 (similar to New Orleans the week prior) and Carolina had won six out of the last seven meetings between the teams.

Carolina throughout the game put together some great offensive drives. Jimmy Clausen was not amazing, but he was not horrible either. He had a solid performance, along with Brandon LaFell. Jeff King had some troubles throughout the first half, dropped passes and penalties. Steve Smith was also having some difficulties, but played well. Mike Goodson, the last of our healthy four backs, played his heart out and had an outstanding game. We had a couple costly turnovers and we had even more costly penalties, both of which tend to kill our momentum and put more pressure on our defense, which has already been holding us together. But this week was a little different; I saw something that many fans should be ecstatic about. Steve Smith was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct at the end of the game for a hit against Aqib Talib. Now I know it sounds bad that we should be happy over this penalty, but lets really look at it.

Now, we all know the passion that Steve Smith has for the game of football, we all know his abilities as a player, and we all know of his temper (i.e. reference Ken Lucas). But what expired there on the field on Sunday was another quality that Steve Smith has, respect. Steve Smith was penalized for a late hit against Talib, but what he was really doing was hitting back in response to Talib's "late" hit on Jimmy Clausen. Smith was standing up for his rookie quarterback, which shows great promise for our future on this team.

When Steve Smith was asked about his frustration and his late hit, he replied "No, actually that was not frustration. It was a quarterback sneak, Jimmy went in, the D-line obviously cut, so it made (center Ryan) Kalil and the guards raise up. Jimmy was over the top, and 25 and 26 (Talib and Bucs safety Sean Jones) went head-first into Jimmy, and I followed. So that wasn't frustration." He said, "Despite what people think, I actually am a team player. I'd do it again; I'd do it 10 out of 10 times, 100 out of 100 times. Guys going in there, he's going head-first in there, I'm going to follow. That's not frustration. That's the fight in me. I'm not going to quit, I'm not going to let whoever it is come in there and cheap-shot my guy. Call it what you want, label it whatever you want to label it, but that's football."

Many questioned the leadership abilities of Steve Smith at the beginning of the season, many questioned his connection with the rookie quarterback throughout the few weeks that Clausen started; but as we can clearly see Steve Smith has a connection to this team and will stick by it through thick and thin. Although some will question the way of showing this connection, those of us that know Steve Smith know that this is a good sign for future Carolina football.

Looking forward to another Sunday with the team, GO PANTHERS!

Bad Became Worse Which Became Devastating

The reality had already set in on a disappointing season, long before entering week 9 at Bank of America Stadium. Most of the fans had come to the realization that our beloved Panthers were not going to be making any miracle run to the playoffs. And sadly, this realization became even clearer throughout the next 60 minutes of football.

Now some may say this became clear before this week and some can argue that it is clear by the final score of the game 34-3. But I say neither was absolute until the events that followed took place. What can I say, I am a hopeful and sometimes naive.

Carolina has always played solid football against the New Orleans Saints, even in times when they were considered unbeatable or vice versa. John Fox is 11-6 against the Saints in his time with the Panthers, three of those loses coming in the last three meetings and until this year, we had not been swept by the Saints since 2001. Now given all of these statistics, we knew that this was going to be a good game and the opening drive did not dispute this argument.

The Saints began the game with a couple exploding running plays, which made all Panthers fans immediately regret watching the game, thinking this was going to end up like weeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8. However, Drew Brees fumbles the snap and made a bad throw, it was intercepted and returned 66 yards, by Richard Marshall, setting Carolina up with good field position. New Orleans Defense held us to a field game (which I still think we should have gone for it... 4th and goal on the 2 yard line, either walk away with a TD or make them drive 98 yards for theirs, oh well). It was after this point in the game when the reality began to creep into the picture.

Not even four minutes later in the game, Carolina had the ball back (and NO had yet to score) when Jonathan Stewart rushed for 5 yards and fumbles the ball; however what makes the play bad is that Stewart was injured on the play (never mind the fumble). Already having our starter, DeAngelo Williams, out with a foot injury, we were now down to our number three and four backs, Tyrell Sutton and Mike Goodson enter the picture.

Nine minutes more pass in the game and Carolina is on our own 38 yard line, when Matt Moore is sacked by Ellis. He would leave the field holding his arm close to his body. He tried throwing a couple of times on the sideline (in agony), but proceeded to the locker room shortly after. Jimmy Clausen would take over at quarterback.

Twelve minutes more pass in the game and Carolina is now down a quarterback and their two starting running backs, when Tyrell Sutton gets tackled on a 1 yard rush and is injured. He does not make it back for the rest of the game, making Mike Goodson the only healthy running back remaining for Carolina.

The game would come to an end with yet another tally mark in the loss column, but Carolina had questions that needed to be answered. What is the status of our running backs, our quarterback, and will our defense get the help they need from Otah and Davis anytime soon(I mean our pass D is ranked fourth, not needing a ton of help there, but we can always improve)? This morning a number of these questions were answered.

Matt Moore, Thomas Davis, and Dan Connors were all placed on Injured Reserve. They are joining the group of Charly Martin, Duke Robinson, Hilee Taylor, Jamar Williams, and Wallace Wright. Not to mention the injury report of DeAngelo Williams, Tyrell Sutton, Jonathan Stewart, and Jeff Otah.

The season has been hard to watch, unbearable at times, but when you see the possibility of any hope being carted off the field player after player, it moves to an entirely different level. The Panthers move to 1-7 with a road game against the Tampa Bay Bucs this upcoming week, who are looking to bounce back and stay in contention with Atlanta for the conference title, but hopefully the Panthers will be able to muster up some offense to compliment our outstanding defense and put another tally mark in the win column.

I wish each and every Panther a speedy recovery, not for the sake of the team and the fans, but for their own health. In the mean time I will be keeping my fingers crossed, but not holding my breath, GO PANTHERS!

Week 8: And We're Back!

I guess I should have never commended the coaching staff on making Matt Moore the starter for the Panthers. I feel like the news media, where I am just complaining about everything; even in times when the coaches seem to be doing exactly what I am asking them to do. You can see from one of my previous posts that I was completely against the 'switch' at QB coming out of the bye week. I was quick to swallow my tongue when we pulled out the narrow victory over the San Francisco 49ers. And you can see by my post that week I said, even though "I had some strong arguments opposing Matt Moore, I was happy he lead us to a victory" and I even said "John Fox was right decision making the switch". It turns out; I gave credit where credit was not due.

I tried to leave the past week victorious post up for as long as possible, it was such a good turn around for our team, it is hard to believe that I am back to looking at all of our problems.

The game started off as one of the slowest games I had seen in a long time. However, it did give us a chance to showcase just how dominant our Defense has really become under Meeks direction (even with losing the large salary Julius Peppers). But when our Defense continues to hold them to 0 points even after turnovers giving them great field position, we need our offense to make something happen.

The first issue that we had problems with was the play calling. Now I don't know if Jeff Davidson was drinking heavily the night before/during the game or if John Fox over stepped Davidson and said we are going to do something a little different today. Regardless the first two offensive play calls of the game were HORRENDOUS! ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS!! We have started the season at this point 1-5, clearly demonstrating that we are having trouble carrying out plays that should come second nature to a professional athlete; however our coaching staff decides that we must be so advanced (due to our first win of the season the week prior) that we should try trick plays and then yet another trick play (for an INT and a loss of 12 yards) because the first one worked out so well for us. When you are starting the season at 1-5, with a rookie heavy team, you do not go to trick plays, you work on getting the plays you got down pat. After those first two plays Jerry Richardson should have made a call and fired both of them on the spot.

The second issue we seemed to have was turning the ball over (surprise surprise), however we can not blame a couple of them on rookies. Two of the biggest momentum killers in the game were turnovers by none other than veteran Steve Smith. Steve Smith is one of the greatest WR in the league; however when he complains about not being involved in our offense and then we put the ball into his hands and he has multiple drops and fumbles. We have some issues. I admire Smith; I admire his will, his enthusiasm for the game/team, and his abilities as a player, but we must take care of the ball.

Lastly, our issue this week was the same issue we have had for the entire season. QB performance. We passed for just under 200 yards and had 1 TD to our 3 INT. If you look up the definition of Interception in the dictionary, they now have a picture of the Carolina Panthers. We are 1-6 in the first couple of weeks, we are not going to make the playoffs. This is marked up as a throw away year, a growth year, a rebuilding year, whatever you want to call it. Put in Jimmy Clausen and get some experience under his belt. Why wait? What are we gaining? What are we losing? It is becoming more and more painful to watch this team each week, committing the same mistakes, having the same problems, following the same game plan that continues to fail. I am just hoping that by the grace of God we return to our week 7 team!

ALWAYS AND FOREVER, GO PANTHERS!