Carolina Huddle

Last week we reviewed the first four games of the 2008 season. There’s no reason to think that the Panthers will end up 4-0 or 0-4, but while we dream happily of a 3-1 start, 2-2 is a pretty distinct possibility and 1-3 isn’t outside the realm of possibility. That’s not great, but fortunately for them the second quarter gets a little easier.

In October teams start to forge their identities. Rookies begin to gain confidence, offensive lines start to gel, and teams discover who their new playmakers are. For the Panthers, that group should include Steve Smith, Jake Delhomme, and Julius Peppers. Adding Stewart or Godfrey to that list would be a nice surprise. At any rate, at this point Panther fans will know what the team that’s going to show up on Sundays will look like. Jake’s elbow will be strong or it won’t. The Offensive Line will have an identity (let’s hope it includes protection!). The effectiveness of the defensive line will not be a question mark. Stewart’s running, Godfrey in coverage, and our Wide Receivers as a unit will all be answers instead of questions.

After four games another thing happens. Teams begin to get enough film on rookies to start exploiting their tendencies. An offensive tackle that relies on the same sort of blocking technique for every speed rusher will find himself looking silly a couple of times in a game when someone realizes the tendency and exploits it. A cornerback that can’t defend a crossing route will get picked on until he’s pulled. Rookie Quarterbacks who eyeball their receivers will start getting picked off. This is when good study habits start to show themselves. That’s going to come up big in our fifth game of the season.

Week Five, home versus the Kansas City Chiefs
2007 record: 4-12, third in the AFC West
2007 offensive rank: 31 (32th in rushing, 20th in passing, and 31st in scoring)
2007 defensive rank: 13 (28th against the run, 5th against the pass, and 14th in points allowed)

The Chiefs struggled to win four games in 2007, but that’s not a reason to count them out in 2008. Kansas City still has plenty of talent on the roster, maybe enough to make a playoff run. Brodie Croyle and Kolby Smith got some good experience at the end of 2007, Larry Johnson will return from his injury, and Dwayne Bowe will be back. In short, it’s not all bleak, particularly when you consider their stellar draft. Granted, they’ll need to get really lucky with their play in the trenches, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

The biggest need for the Chiefs in the off season was along the offensive line. That unit begged for a severe overhaul and it doesn’t look like they got enough. They needed at least two new players here, a left tackle and a right guard, and it could be argued that they needed a right tackle as well. Every interior offensive lineman they have is over 30, and they really showed their age in 2007. Brandon Albert is expected to take over at Left Tackle, but there’s no guarantee he works out there as his college position was Guard. They did get a couple of journeymen and a late round pick here, but all in all there’s not a lot to get excited. Unless Johnson makes a strong return and creates his own holes, the offense doesn’t look like it’s going to be much improved in 2007.

On the other side of the ball the Chiefs will depend on their first pick to improve their rushing defense. Glenn Dorsey is a rare talent who should be able to create significant pressure from the Defensive Tackle position. Granted, he’s still a rookie. In college his physical burst was enough to create havoc and demand regular double teams from opponents, but with a months worth of film he won’t be catching any of the Panthers by surprise. He also won’t have the benefit of Jared Allen occupying the other team’s attention, as the rest of the Kansas City line provides a pass rush that’s questionable at best.

At linebacker, they return a unit that redefined the concept of bad against the run in 2007. Derrick Johnson is good, but he needs a lot of help. Napoleon Harris is a journeyman who couldn’t stick in Oakland or Minnesota, and Donnie Edwards is 35 in April. For some reason, the Chiefs looked at the term “team run defense” and saw Atlanta Falcons so they signed away Demorrio Williams. Who knows, maybe he’ll do for them what he did for Atlanta. In the secondary the Chiefs have few holes but questionable depth. At the safety position they have two young starters and a probable rookie backing them up. The Cornerbacks are both in their 30s, and as with the Safety they’re likely to have a rookie at backup and playing nickel.

So on paper, this looks like a pretty good game to warm up with for the real conference play. On offense the Panthers should have plenty of time to throw, and the running game ought to shine against the Chiefs. On defense the Panthers will once again pit their strength against the opponents’, and it looks like the Carolina pass defense will be more than a match for the Chief’s offense. This looks like a probable win.

- Kansas City leads series 2-1.

Week Six, at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2007 record: 9-7, first in the NFC South
2007 offensive rank: 18 (11th in rushing, 16th in passing, and 18th in scoring)
2007 defensive rank: 2 (17th against the run, 1st against the pass, and 3rd in points allowed)

Although the Panthers will have already played Atlanta, this is the game where conference play really begins. The Bucs, Saints and the Panthers all have designs on the division title, and none of them likes the others very much. The Panthers and Bucs almost look like mirror images where the question marks are concerned. Both teams have a lot more questions on offense than defense, and both organizations feel like they’ve done a good job in the off season addressing weaknesses and building depth.

Tampa Bay has a young and aggressive defense that’s traditionally among the tops in the league. This year should be no different, the Bucs are poised for yet another top five finish. There are only a few areas of potential weakness. At cornerback, they lost starter Brian Kelly and Ronde Barber is 33. To address that they drafted Aqib Talib and signed Eugene Wilson from the Patriots, presumably to play the nickel. The other positions that may be exploited on the Bucs Defense are both on the line, at Left Defensive End and at Defensive Tackle. Gaines Adams is a solid player at the right DE position, but on the left side Kevin Carter is 34 and Jimmy Wilkerson isn’t going to scare anyone. At Defensive Tackle, the Bucs are solid if a bit thin.

Offensive questions are another story. To start with, Tampa plans on going with Jeff Garcia, who will be 38 when the season starts. Joey Galloway will be 37 in November. Michael Clayton is Tampa’s own version of Keary Colbert, with 87 catches in the three seasons since his 80-catch rookie year. They added Dexter Jackson here from Appalachian State, but he’ll still be adjusting to the speed difference between cornerbacks in Division II and cornerbacks in the NFL. On the line Luke Petitgout will probably be injured by now, and they need someone better than Donald Penn if they want to improve on last years 36 sacks allowed. At running back Carnell Williams has been demoted to a Yugo, while Warrick Dunn is at the end of his career. Earnest Graham is about their only reliable option here. They drafted Corey Boyd as well, but aside from a solid performance at the Shrine game there’s nothing to suggest he’ll be anything special at this level. On paper the offense looks fragile. If they can avoid injuries like last year, then they’ll be able to make things happen. If the wrong player goes down, then their season will look less like 2007 and more like 2006.

In sum Tampa Bay looks to follow last year’s formula. Depend on the defense to keep you in games, run the ball as best you can, and let Garcia’s veteran leadership find ways to win. It was good enough to win the South in a down year, but they went nowhere in the playoffs and they can’t depend on bad luck in both Carolina and New Orleans for two years running. Tampa Bay will be coming off of two games against opponents that like to run in Green Bay and Denver, so they may be banged up a little on their interior line. If Carolina’s plans for the season hold up, they should be able move the ball on the ground. Jake Delhomme also has an absurdly good 7-1 record against the Bucs and is undefeated at Raymond James Stadium. This may not seem like a probable win at first glance, but if tradition holds and the Panthers are healthy, it should be.

- Carolina leads series 9-6.

Week Seven, home versus the New Orleans Saints
2007 record: 7-9, third in the NFC South
2007 offensive rank: 4 (28th in rushing, 3rd in passing, and 12th in scoring)
2007 defensive rank: 26 (13th against the run, 30th against the pass, and 25th in points allowed)

The 2008 Saints are in many ways like the 2007 Panthers. The organization suffered through many injuries in 2007 but feel like they have the core group they need to get back to the top quickly. There’s a lot of talent on their roster, but a lack of balance that could make them vulnerable to injuries if things break the wrong way. At this point in the season the Saints will have played four of their games at home, including the two opponents that are most likely to be difficult–Minnesota and Tampa Bay. If things have broken the right way, this will probably be a battle for the division lead.

In 2007 the Saints had some pretty obvious problems. They gave up 245.3 passing yards a game and no team allowed more passing touchdowns. Opposing quarterbacks looked great against them, with an NFL worst 96.9 passer rating allowed and an NFL worst 7.9 yards per attempt given up. Their run defense wasn’t that bad, but that could be a lot like the Vikings situation–if it’s so easy to throw why bother running the ball? They had no real pass rush and their secondary was so bad that they were starting a free safety at cornerback. They needed pressure and presence in the middle, and the good news for Saints fans is that they got both in the off season.

After Glen Dorsey, Sedrick Ellis was the most dominant defensive tackle in college football last year. By this point in the season, the Panthers will know just how much game planning will have to be done to account for him; it’s all but certain that he will give the Saints more pressure than they had last year. Behind him they signed Jonathan Vilma to play middle linebacker. If he avoids the injury bug they’ll be much better against the pass, but it remains to be seen how well he can play the run in a 4-3 defense. At cornerback they drafted and signed several players in an effort to find someone who can be reliable opposite Mike McKenzie, assuming he is able to come back from injury. Even if he does, he’s 32 years old and can have trouble keeping up with faster receivers. There is a huge hole at Free Safety named Josh Bullocks, and the Saints didn’t choose to upgrade there.

The bottom line on defense is simple. The Saints are banking heavily on Vilma’s presence in the middle and Ellis’ pressure to reduce the effectiveness of their opponents’ passing games. Given where they finished in 2007, they’re very likely to improve on paper. However, entering 2007 they were considered as a very vulnerable team against the run (consider that DTs Brian Young and Hollis Thomas are both in their 30s). By this point in the season, that will be exposed given the teams they will be playing. If the Saints can’t stop the run then all the high-jumping fast-bursting rookie defensive tackles in the world won’t help them. Expect a lot of shoot-outs where the Saints are involved.

Which is fine to a lot of Saints fans, given how good their offense is. There is no more explosive unit in the NFC South, and possibly in the NFC as a whole. The only question marks are at center (which should be stable and fine at this point), running back (Bush isn’t an every down kind of guy, Aaron Stecker is a slow-and-steady guy who gets the yards he needs but isn’t a break-away threat, and McAllister is aging), and Tight End. By and large, there aren’t a lot of weaknesses in this unit.

So basically, this should be high scoring affair. The Saints’ strength on offense is obviously passing. The strength of the Carolina Defense will be in coverage. The Panthers look to run the ball, and the Saints played well against the run in 2007. If Duece McAllister makes a strong return the Saints’ offense will be difficult at best to stop, and the defense will benefit from the increased rest. If the Panthers get the strong running game they seek, then they’ll be in more or less the same shape. This game will likely be decided earlier in the year as the first injuries begin to mount. Given that the Saints off season is already a little rocky, what with the retirement of Dan Morgan and Charles Grant’s legal troubles, we’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that they’re going to have a difficult time in 2008 where this sort of thing is concerned. Given that, mark up a probable win for the home team. Or you can go the other way and look at the Panthers’ home record over the past few years and the fact that the road team has won eight of the previous nine matchups between these two teams, and figure it as a probably not. We’ll call it a firm maybe here.

- Carolina leads series 14-12.

Week Eight, home versus the Arizona Cardinals
2007 record: 8-8, second in the NFC West
2007 offensive rank: 12 (29th in rushing, 5th in passing, and 7th in scoring)
2007 defensive rank: 17 (9th against the run, 28th against the pass, and 27th in points allowed)

After two tough weeks of division play, the Panthers get a good breather against a good team. That is, they’ll get a chance to play a game against a talented opponent without the added pressure of division standings on the line. The Cardinals have a lot of talent, but they can be beaten and often are when they face the Panthers.

Last year the Cardinals had an injury report that read like the Panthers’. After starting the season with playoff hopes, they ended up playing for pride as their quarterback, defensive end, tight end, safety, and cornerback all had starters that finished on the IR list. This year they have a difficult early schedule, but will be coming into Bank of America stadium off a bye week, presumably rested and well prepared to gain revenge for last year’s loss.

The 2007 Cardinals had problems on defense both against the run and against the pass. Given that most of their major injuries were on the defensive side of the ball, that may be no surprise. Still, the lack of depth that was exposed killed their playoff hopes. To address that they drafted defense early, going with CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and DE Calais Campbell. With Rodgers-Cromartie the Cardinals hope to find a strong working combination for their secondary. They need to replace last year’s free safety, Terrence Holt, because he’s now a Panther. They’ll probably move a cornerback over and let a starter emerge from last year’s committee at the other side. At Linebacker they need to replace the strong side, as they lost both their starter and backup at that position to free agency. They’ll depend on a rookie, an undrafted free agent, or a 31 year old journeyman from the Steelers to man this position, which isn’t going to build confidence in their run defense. Still, just getting back the players on the 2007 IR list will give the defense a big boost.

On offense the Cards are largely set. They needed a little depth on the offensive line, and help at running back just because of Edgerrin James’ age. At tight end, neither Leonard Pope nor Ben Patrick have really shown anything special, although Pope spent most of last year on IR. With Leinart back though, and considering the skill of their two top receivers, the Cardinals should be able to move the ball well again.

This is a good game for Carolina to have after meeting the Saints. The Cardinals are yet another team that’s better in the air than on the ground, and by now the Panthers’ secondary should be playing in rhythm. Stopping the run shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, given the lack of improvements made in this area, and a one-dimensional Cardinals offense ought to be easy to shut down. If their receivers are healthy the Panthers should be able to move the ball against the Cardinals defense, at least enough to outscore them. The most damning Cardinal statistic is this though–over the last five seasons, the Cardinals are 7-33 on the road. Five of those wins have come against division opponents and the other two were against cellar-dwelling opponents that were having terrible seasons. The Cardinals may be talented this year, but this should be a win for the Panthers.

- Carolina leads series 5-2.

That concludes the second quarter of a John Fox season. Two games that the Panthers should win, and two where they have a pretty good shot. If things break the Panthers way then look for a nice winning streak entering the bye. If they don’t, the Panthers should still be in the thick of the playoff hunt and in the division race. Call it a 3-1 record, and if they can exit the first quarter at 2-2 then they’ll get to the halfway point at 5-3. Not great, but not too shabby and given Fox’s historical performance in November, enough to get the fans really excited.

See you next week with part three!