Who made the decision?

[PantherBrew]

Probably as simple as deciding to Zag when we always seem to Zig.  Who made that call? Well, obviously, you'd have to ask.  

 

Personally, I could see Ron saying on the headset, "Steve, get after them, they can't block us".  I've been in that situation, and it truly is smelling blood in the water.  Also, the series before we played off, and we still gave up the big play, so... again hard to say.  

[Saca312]

For those talking about Reiff going down being the reason, you realize Addison still beat up that dude like no tomorrow all day.

[GRWatcher]

I'm not sure there was an actual decision articulated. It may have been more that the Defense wasn't going to be denied. Cam's run, Stew's TD jump, Special Teams pinning them deep lead to the Defense wanting to do their part and getting truly hyped for it.

[Mr. Scot]

11 minutes ago, PantherBrew said:

Probably as simple as deciding to Zag when we always seem to Zig.  Who made that call? Well, obviously, you'd have to ask. 

Personally, I could see Ron saying on the headset, "Steve, get after them, they can't block us".  I've been in that situation, and it truly is smelling blood in the water.  Also, the series before we played off, and we still gave up the big play, so... again hard to say.  

Still leaves me with the same question though?

Why wait till now, especially given we've lost games with the conservative approach more than once?

 

2 minutes ago, GRWatcher said:

I'm not sure there was an actual decision articulated. It may have been more that the Defense wasn't going to be denied. Cam's run, Stew's TD jump, Special Teams pinning them deep lead to the Defense wanting to do their part and getting truly hyped for it.

We blitzed on four straight plays.

We pretty much never see that at the close of a game where we're leading.

[Peppers90 NC]

Wilks calls the plays, will leave it at that

[Davidson Deac II]

18 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Panther fans have become maddeningly accustomed to seeing one of the league's best defenses being told to go into a soft prevent mode every time we have a fourth quarter lead. 

There is an assumption that we blow big fourth quarter leads, but I doubt we do it any more than on average than any other team.  In fact, we generally win games if we are up in the fourth by two scores.  The last time we blew a fourth qtr lead of nine point (two scores) or more was in 2012 I think.  And by blew the lead, I mean lost. 

Most teams go to a defense that has more defensive backs, and trying to keep the ball in front of them, and I am not so certain that we do it any more, or suffer from it any more than any other team. 

I do think we tend to be less aggressive on offense when we are up by two scores or more.  We usually do it to early. 

[PantherBrew]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Still leaves me with the same question though?

Why wait till now, especially given we've lost games with the conservative approach more than once?

 

We blitzed on four straight plays.

We pretty much never see that at the close of a game where we're leading.

I think it was the 52 yard touchdown we gave up.  

 

For the most part, when we blow leads it is because we continually give up underneath routes and get dinked and dunked on.

 

*I think* we were playing Tampa 2 from what I could see on the television viewing on the big play.  I think we basically asked Luke or the other LB to wall off/run with the seem of #2 or#3, which was their stud, Thelin* . Again I haven't seen the tape, just going off of memory.  

 

Also, we kept getting toasted by Keenam runs/scrambles playing 2 deep man-under.  

Bringing the heat was really our best option. 

[1989]

It had to do with it being their final drive, with 80 yards to go, no time-outs... knowing that they HAD to pass and pass deep. You blitz because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain in that scenario. 

[GRWatcher]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

We blitzed on four straight plays.

We pretty much never see that at the close of a game where we're leading.

If it hadn't worked, if Keenum had been able to complete passes, what would you say? We had made their game one dimensional and we took advantage of that because not blitzing wasn't working. Blitzing worked so well because the Defense was totally in adrenaline/kill mode. 

[Ace_Aladdin]

59 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Panther fans have become maddeningly accustomed to seeing one of the league's best defenses being told to go into a soft prevent mode every time we have a fourth quarter lead.  This consistently means we get to watch opposing teams take advantage and come back on us, often ultimately defeating us or at the very least making the game scarily close.

But on the final defensive series yesterday, something was different.

In need of a "close out", the Panthers defense went into full attack mode, blitzing the daylights out of Vikings quarterback Case Keenum and his already depleted offensive line.  The result: a final drive that went absolutely nowhere.  No late game nail biting, no "Cardiac Cat" theatrics, just a much needed victory secured.

So why the change?

Did the notoriously conservative Ron Rivera manage for just a moment to find his inner "Riverboat" again?

Or did defensive coordinator Steve Wilks say "screw this pansy s--t" and make the decision to amp things up on his own?

There's no real hard evidence that I know of to support either conclusion.  There's circumstantial stuff that Rivera pretty much never goes this route (at least not with McDermott as his DC) and the general talk is that Wilks is more aggressive than his predecessor (analysis of our defensive patterns would seem to support this) but it's ultimately still Rivera in charge, so who can say for certain?

What's your speculation?

What happened at the end of the game yesterday?

Dude it was Rivera , the man is the best coach panthers had in franchise history.

The players never quit on Rivera no matter the record speaks volume for itself.

[electro's horse]

 they'll generally go pretty aggressive when its time to actually end the game on a defensive stand. 

see atlanta this year as well. 

but yeah everything up until that point is run the clock run the clock run the clock

[jbland]

1 hour ago, Mr. Scot said:

Panther fans have become maddeningly accustomed to seeing one of the league's best defenses being told to go into a soft prevent mode every time we have a fourth quarter lead.  This consistently means we get to watch opposing teams take advantage and come back on us, often ultimately defeating us or at the very least making the game scarily close.

But on the final defensive series yesterday, something was different.

In need of a "close out", the Panthers defense went into full attack mode, blitzing the daylights out of Vikings quarterback Case Keenum and his already depleted offensive line.  The result: a final drive that went absolutely nowhere.  No late game nail biting, no "Cardiac Cat" theatrics, just a much needed victory secured.

So why the change?

Did the notoriously conservative Ron Rivera manage for just a moment to find his inner "Riverboat" again?

Or did defensive coordinator Steve Wilks say "screw this pansy s--t" and make the decision to amp things up on his own?

There's no real hard evidence that I know of to support either conclusion.  There's circumstantial stuff that Rivera pretty much never goes this route (at least not with McDermott as his DC) and the general talk is that Wilks is more aggressive than his predecessor (analysis of our defensive patterns would seem to support this) but it's ultimately still Rivera in charge, so who can say for certain?

What's your speculation?

What happened at the end of the game yesterday?

Because there O line was in shambles and we were having no trouble getting to the QB. 

[Fright]

Probably something we saw on film... maybe Keenum did well in late drives against prevent and worse against pressure. I have to believe our coaches at least look at QB tendencies in regards to those situations. 

[Chardee MacDennis]

I honestly didn't see a difference between the last possession and the rest of the game (taking out when we went prevent). We only appeared to bring 5 guys on each of those last 4 plays. They just got to the QB quicker due to the nature of the time on the clock and circumstance of the game, and the Vikings losing a Left Tackle during the game.

The rest of the game, it seemed the Vikings had the right call to pick up the blitzes almost every time when we brought extra pressure. This time it simply seemed to not work as well. It's not like we brought 6 or 7 guys. Just 5 against their 5 OL. 

As to who made the call, I would suggest it was not Ron as he doesn't really impact defensive play calls other than to direct Wilks or McD to go into prevent at times when he wants to drain some clock and attempt to keep everything in front of the defenders.

We all know Shula was in full control of the offense at the end, even calling all those runs at the goalline. And the turrible Cam run on 3rd and 2 that went nowhere. Cam simply surprised all of us and made a great play. He made a lot of those in 2015, in spite of the coaching. 

This team will go as far as the players take it, in spite of coaches being dumb. When the players are simply ordinary or above average, the negative effect of the coaching means we lose games. But when the players go above and beyond and play like rockstars, we can be successful even with the worst coaches in the league.