Week 3 - Panthers Loss to Minnesota - misc stats & analysis

[KB_fan]

Hi all,

Busy busy work week for me.  I've been at the office since 6:45 a.m. local time both yesterday & today... (my work day usually starts at 8 or 9, depending on the day of the week).  So this thread will be MUCH briefer than usual.  But I did get all the gamebook data entered, and have started on some tables, so want to post what I can here throughout the week.   Also, am going to try and write a main page article later today, if at all possible.

Hope others will chime in with interesting analysis, stats, and other pertinent info about this game.

[CarolinaReaper864]

Thanks ahead of time. Really curious what kinds of analytics you will put together.

 

[KB_fan]

Let's start with BBR's stats & superlatives.  (Were there any "superlatives" this week?!?!?)

http://blackandbluereview.com/stats-and-superlatives-vikings-at-panthers/

It's not letting me copy and paste any of the text, I'm afraid, so you'll have to click the link.

 

Also at BBR:  Snap Counts:

http://blackandbluereview.com/snap-counts-week-3-vikings-panthers/

Again, I can't copy and paste.... so go check it out.   Pretty shocking that Kelvin had the most WR snaps, but only 1 target!

Good to see Shaq Thompson's snaps increasing week to week.

 

Finally from BBR, a pretty good game analysis piece:

http://blackandbluereview.com/panthers-6-pack-vikings-at-panthers/

[KB_fan]

Here are a couple of tables I've pulled together so far while doing the gamebook data entry last night.

1st, here are weekly passing & receiving summaries:

 

Week 3 Receiving Stats:

(apologies that the sort order is random - it's the week 1 leader board order, and I keep forgetting to re-sort it each week...)

Cam targeted 9 receivers again, of whom 7 had catches.

It's interesting to put the above data in the context of WR snaps:

Snaps:

• Olsen 77 (100%)
• KB  61 (79%)   Let that sink in.  KB had 1 target in 61 snaps!!!!!!
• Ginn 49 (64%)
• Brown 45 (58%)
• Funch 42 (55%)
• Fozzy 35 (45%)

 

Perhaps more interesting, here is the season-to-date receiving summary:

No surprise to see Greg leading in Targets, Receptions & Yards

Look at Fozzy leading in reception %  Caught 9 of 11 targets.  He's off to a great start this year.

And love him or hate him, gotta love Ted Ginn's Avg Yd / Rec %

And in spite of having no receptions in week 3; KB is still atop the passing TD leader board:

[KB_fan]

Here is rushing data:

First the overall team stats week by week:

 

Here are the week 3 player totals (not sorted in order - sorry):

 

And here are the week 1 - 3 rushing summary stats by player:

Fozzy shares the lead with Cam for most rushing attempts.  He leads the team in yards, and is second after Ginn in YPC.

Waka Waka.

[KB_fan]

A few more miscellaneous stats this a.m. regarding things that caught my eye last night, then I have to get back to work....  Much more this evening, I hope.

 

1.  Points allowed following Turnovers:   We all know the number of turnovers we have allowed (give-aways) is dreadful.  WAY WAY too high.  But I was impressed that our defense limited MIN to only 3 points on 3 turnovers on Sunday.  (It helped that one interception was just before the half, but still)....  good to see the points allowed per turnover number coming way down.  We were excellent in this area in 2015.

 

2.  Pass Rush / Sacks:   For those complaining about lack of pass rush and lack of sacks... things don't look too different from the 1st 3 weeks of 2015.  Our D line had 4 sacks in 3 games last year; and are on the same pace this season.  Perhaps we shouldn't yet be panicking that Short and Ealy haven't gotten a sack.  They hadn't this time last year either.

 

3)  Field Position:   We've lost the Field Position battle every week.   I want to look a little more deeply into this, but it's a concern.  I think it mostly has to do with the returns and return coverage.  Andy Lee has definitely HELPED the situation... but there needs to be improvement.  More on this later....

 

 

[KB_fan]

Minnesota Defense Stats:  Finally - just some stats to show how dominant Minnesota's defense was.   Yes, our offense looked bad, but wow, these stats are unreal. [I actually want to re-verify that they're correct, they seem so extreme!]

Here are the defensive stats week by week (excluding tackles).  I don't recall seeing any game last season where a defense was a dominant as MIN - maybe the Super Bowl?  I'll have to check....

The top stats are for the Panthers, the bottom stats for our opponents.   You'll see the 2015 regular season game averages for comparison at the far right.

[cardiaccat52]

The game was very frustrating. I was there and offensively, I didn't understand the game plan at all. I know I'm reiterating the frustration for the lack of short/quick (non-screen) passes being called, and it was clearly evident. If you look at the stats, the only WRs to catch balls were Ginn (2 catches after the LOS) and Brown (3 catches after the LOS). Every pass they caught was 12 yards or more....I know the team likes to pick up large chunks, but when Cam is getting sacked (8 times) and constantly pressured, I was shocked to not even see a simple 3-5 yard slant to KB/Funch the entire game. 

I also thought about what Ron said when asked if he was concerned about the team's pass rush against Denver since there didn't seem to be a lot of pressure. His response: 

Black & Blue Review ‏@BlackBlueReview  7m7 minutes ago

RR ok with the pass rush? “Oh yeah, most certainly.” Says offenses getting ball out quickly has been the problem.

Why can't the coaching staff adjust and take this same approach?? IF YOUR QB IS CONSTANTLY GETTING PRESSURED/SACKED, GET THE BALL OUT QUICKER AND STOP RUNNING DEEP ROUTES!!!

[Adb6368]

Although we only allowed 3 points on those 3 turnovers, it was more of them being able to flip the field-position in their favor each of those times which, in the end, cost us that game. I have a feeling the punt return TD was due to Lee being back up in our own territory and wanting to boom it to get some of the yardage back. Instead, he out-kicked his coverage and the rest is history. Without those 3 turnovers, this would have been a win for us. 

Also, it doesn't help that Gano missed another field goal that would have put us up 2 scores and, again, flipped field-position in their favor.

[KB_fan]

I had a short break in between meetings, and went back and reviewed 2015 stats for opponents defenses.  The Minnesota stats are just unreal.  (And yes, I verified the game book data again, those are correct!)

Here are the full 2015 regular season defensive stats for Panthers & Opponents (excluding tackles).  You'll see highest defensive stat total was for Seattle, but actually Tennessee had highest sacks, QB pressures;  Giants highest passes defensed.   Post-season stats to follow below.  Denver did pressure us WORSE than Minnesota in the Super Bowl, but not by much....

Our worst defensive stat differential last season was -11 versus the Giants - due mostly to our own defense not playing up to par.   The Minnesota differential of -22 is still astonishing to me, higher even than the differential in our SB loss to Denver.

I hope the table is legible.  Click on the image for a larger view / to zoom.

 

2015 Post-Season data:

[KB_fan]

10 minutes ago, Adb6368 said:

Although we only allowed 3 points on those 3 turnovers, it was more of them being able to flip the field-position in their favor each of those times which, in the end, cost us that game. I have a feeling the punt return TD was due to Lee being back up in our own territory and wanting to boom it to get some of the yardage back. Instead, he out-kicked his coverage and the rest is history. Without those 3 turnovers, this would have been a win for us. 

Also, it doesn't help that Gano missed another field goal that would have put us up 2 scores and, again, flipped field-position in their favor.

Yes, I totally agree with what you've written...  I'll maybe comment more on this when I post the drive charts for the game tomorrow or Thursday.

[Snake]

The vikes beat us on good ST play and defense for sure. The pined us back on the 3 yard line twice and returned a punt. Really can't ask more from ST.

[KB_fan]

By the way, please feel free to post stats questions here.  I'll try to answer if I can.  (It may be the weekend)

I already have two pending questions re:

1) 2016 Penalties - putting them in context of other seasons / the NFL more broadly

2) 3rd downs:  Number of 3rd & longs... , also decrease in number of 1st downs gained on 1st or 2nd down.

 

But knowing what folks are interested in will help me make sure I'm posting stuff the Huddle wants to see, not just stuff that catches my eye.

[Navy_football]

46 minutes ago, cardiaccat52 said:

I also thought about what Ron said when asked if he was concerned about the team's pass rush against Denver since there didn't seem to be a lot of pressure. His response: 

Black & Blue Review ‏@BlackBlueReview  7m7 minutes ago

RR ok with the pass rush? “Oh yeah, most certainly.” Says offenses getting ball out quickly has been the problem.

 

"offenses getting ball out quickly has been the problem."

 

If that's not an "Oh yeah" moment, then I've never seen one.