Icege

Ewwwww.

If I had to use one word to sum up the first two weeks of this season, that would probably be it (though it is worth considering how many w's I'd be allowed to have). All of the good will built by the late surge last season has been violently dashed against the metaphorical rocks as many of the questions that still lingered are being answered in the opposite way that Panthers nation had wished. Bryce Young? Back to what he had been and perhaps worse, going in reverse. Xavier Legette? Not developing despite the HC and OC both being former WR coaches. Dave Canales? The tape is out on his offensive scheme + play-calling and defenses seem to know the calls coming in before the offense does. The defense? Still not great but they did finally stop the run in Arizona at least and have been working with their backs to the endzones after turnovers multiple times now. Now add the loss of two starting OL (one of them arguably being the best OL on the team) to the IR and things don't look so good.

Not going to be able to post screen caps of the all-22 this week since I'm out of town and only have my work laptop until Saturday, so figured that doing a little something different this week would work and then it's back to full all-22 reviews for week 3! This also gives me something to do since I'm still waking up @ 3am local time and not able to sleep passed 4:30--I tried watching the Chargers/Raiders game last night but thought I was going to die by 7:30pm . Got a sick view of the stadium from the hotel tho! But I digress... here are five members of the Carolina Panthers' that are worth watching and another five that it might be better for your wallet to hold off on buying their jersey.

STONKS UP

• Tetairoa McMillan - TMac is the WR1 that this team has desperately been looking for. He's getting more and more comfortable every rep. In week two he displayed his unique YAC skills for a player of his size with the big catch and run in Q1. He showed off that he can play big too, trucking a DB after turning a quick hitch into a first down via his second effort. This kid is going to be an absolute demon after a full NFL season of strength and conditioning.
• Chau Smith-Wade - Chau's been the team's slot nickel during the first two weeks and hasn't done too bad, though he did give up a TD in week two. He's logging significant snaps and has even lined up at FS for a couple of plays. While he might not be stealing Jaycee or Mike Jackson's role anytime soon, CSW has developed at least into a solid rotational guy that can hold down a position until a more talented starter is ready.
• Nic Scourton - Scourton's motor pops on film. Even though he only got four more snaps in week two, the effort levels never tapered off. He reminds me of a stronger, more talented YGM in that he's constantly giving effort. As much as I dogged on YGM, I could never knock his effort (which was what some of his more positive plays resulted from). Scourton is showing good play strength already as a rookie and while he might not have logged a stat yet outside of snap counts he's going to start getting there. Getting stronger and refining his technique will go a long ways. 
• Princely Umanmielen - Princely only has 21 total snaps on defense (with just one of them in run defense and one in coverage), but he already has one sack and one hurry. He's also been playing on special teams and has had a moment or two there. It's starting to look like his floor as a pass rush specialist is most definitely achievable and that the next stage of his development is showing that he can play against the run.
• Lathan Ransom - Nick Scott must have naked pictures of Evero's mother, but with the way Ransom played in week two on just 12 snaps he's likely going to get more. On those twelve snaps, Ransom was in on four stops. He's also no longer on kick return coverage after getting a bump up to more playing time. All of his snaps on defense have been at FS as well, so he is the clear favorite to start next to Moehrig with Richardson as the ST/DB4. Once Ransom's communication and understanding of the scheme is at a level where he's also able to call adjustments for the secondary he likely doesn't leave the field the same way Xavier Woods didn't.

    
STONKS DOWN

• Bryce Young - Starting year three the same ways that he did years one and two is not good enough for any QB, let alone one that was traded up to #1 overall to select. Bryce has dealt with adversity, absolutely. Year One was a trainwreck where it is impossible to blame anything on him. Year two started horrible, but he was a revelation upon returning from benching. Year three has started the same way as year two and having to bench QB1 for a couple of weeks every season is not a solution. What's hurt Bryce's chances the most is his regression: he's back to hesitating on initial reads and trying to force magic to happen. When he did that, we saw him looking uncertain and overwhelmed (like how he looks now). When he trusts what is happening in front of him and is not trying to force plays, Bryce gets downright surgical. The word is out though: pressure him early and often to get him to speed up his reads early and then watch him try to force magic while playing from behind. On the INT against Arizona, yea he got hit by a free rusher but Bryce also backpedaled five friggin yards before getting hit. Doing that with the lack of a howitzer is just bad QBing. At this point, I don't see how they can take the bonus option unless we start seeing 300+ yard, 3 TD performances every week from start-to-finish rather than just when the defense goes into prevent mode. Perhaps most damning though is that Bryce is now at a point where a play has to go perfectly in order for him to execute the bare minimum and that simply isn't feasible in the pros. His ability to create plays off script if/when things broke down was his part of his magic but now it's like he's trying to force teams to do the same card trick that they've already figured out. Bryce has got to show that he can still make plays with things breaking down around him rather than it leading to catastrophic failure like we keep seeing.
• Xavier Legette - The execution errors are bad enough... but the film shows a lack of effort. I can't help but believe that Canales & company do not know how to utilize XL's skillset... To me, he's a more brolic Ted Ginn Jr. Drags, crossers, deep routes, comebacks, etc... Don't try to give him screens or routes where he's going to get the ball and then have to build up speed. The effort issues are glaring though. Mark Schlereth called it out after week one and in week two we saw them again. I don't know if XL is getting down on himself or what but something has to change.
• Trevin Wallace - Trevin had a much better game in week two than he did week one but he is still getting eaten alive in coverage... and that was supposed to be his strength coming out of the draft! His athleticism made him a solid LB in coverage but there were questions about his instincts. Instincts are still non-existent as playaction seems to put Trevin in the blender as does any type of misdirection. The LB room desperately needs to be rebooted in the offseason where Wallace is at best ILB2 in a 3-4 or the WLB in a 4-3. Wherever he's at, he cannot continue to have an NFL passer rating of 125.7 against him.
• Ja'Tavion Sanders - JT0 continues to whiff bad on blocks in the run game and make tough drops in the pass game. He got bailed out by a defensive holding call on another play where the ball hit him in the hands in front of his facemask but bounced out. His blocking though... in 99 snaps, he's been asked to run block 19 times and pass block just once. It would be different if he were an elite receiving TE, but being that one-dimensional and average at the thing he's supposed to be good at is not good. I'm not ready to write him off just yet as TEs can take some time to develop in the NFL, but there's got to be a significant jump to consider him anything better than a future TE3.
• Trevon Moehrig - This one hurts me to put because I like Moehrig and he has been a beast in the run game. In the pass coverage? A liability. I can't tell if that's because he's also working with Wallace & Rozeboom who have been getting routed up by everyone, if it's because Moehrig's coverage ability was already average at best, or a little bit of column A and column B. Either way, teams have been eating up the middle of the field and Moehrig is part of the crew that gets tasked with taking care of it. Moehrig has been targeted ten times in coverage and has given up ten receptions. That's awful.

STONK WATCH

• Cade Mays - I think it's safe to say that Austin Corbett's career, at least with the Panthers, is likely over. He re-injured the same MCL and was having snap issues in week one. In week two, Corbett was the reason that the stunt on the blitz wasn't picked up which led to the strip-sack during the opening drive. Cade Mays did well in place of Corbett last season, but still lost the job in training camp. He's also on a 1yr deal, so he's playing for another contract. How effective he'll be though without Robert Hunt to his right will be the big question mark.
• Chandler Zavala - With Robert Hunt down with a torn tricep, Chandler Zavala was tagged to take over at guard. He didn't do well either, though he didn't do as abyssmal as he did his rookie season where he was the worst graded OL on PFF. Zavala got bullied by power, regularly missed stunts, and was often caught lunging. If he's not leveled up exponentially from two seasons ago then we're going to see the run game struggle and the pass game continue to crater.
• Brycen Tremayne - Brenton Bersin v3.0 but without the nepotism? Tremayne makes plays on ST and even shows up in the pass game. That one handed grab in week two would've been flipped into an INT by some of the players on the roster, but Tremayne hauled it in and converted the first down. He might end up at best being a replacement for David Moore, but if he could develop into another Jalen Coker that would be incredible. Speaking of... I wonder how he's going to look coming back from injury.
• Dave Canales - The word is out on Canales' offense, so what is he going to do? It's too late to scrap everything... but is it all too much for him? If so, playcalling has to be handed over to Idzik who didn't exactly give us much hope during the preseason with the offense's results. The team is using less motion, there are operational failures, and what was supposed to be the strength of this team is now looking like what it to start last season. The positivity and rah rah are great foundations, but is Dave a gifted enough offensive mind to overcome how opposing defenses are handling his team? The formula now is to attack the QB to get him uneasy, then sit back and take away explosive plays. If Dave can't evolve himself as a playcaller this season, do you really want to let him draft a QB only to be let go after one more season? There's a lot of answers that need to be discovered quickly, because the current trajectory is "Fire everyone (except Tillis?) and find a new QB."
• Ejiro Evero - After getting called out to play the younger guys more often and stop the run, Evero did just that... but that's only his 10th game as the Panthers' coordinator where the team did not give up 200+ rushing yards. That's... terrible. He's also still calling a lot of soft cover-3 looks that teams are jumping on and forcing long conversions to stay on the field. His defense is awesome when the offense can jump out to an early lead and take advantage of the disguised coverages that are built-in, but that doesn't look to be happening nor that it will anytime soon. Sure, he was trying to make chicken salad out of chicken poo last season but this season looks a lot of the same. If the offense can actually put together a complete game then we might be able to see Evero's defense work but at the moment it clearly doesn't.