Analyzing the Game

[Mr. Scot]

First off, I said this elsewhere but I'm going to say it again here...

During a major portion of the time we spent under Shula (including 2015) our usual habit was to get a lead in the first half then either adjust poorly or fail to adjust at all. Our second half offense was often ineffective and frequently abysmal. As a result, our defense was usually worn out and teams frequently came back to either beat us or at least make it close.

That's not what happened today.

They may have had a mediocre drive early on in the latter part of the game, but by mid third quarter it felt like the offense was hitting its stride. When we got our third score, things were looking pretty good (botched extra point aside).

Did we go back to appearing ineffective later? Yes, but not because of poor playcalling or bad/no adjustments. Things went downhill because our starting right tackle got hurt and then...oy. Yet even with that, we still managed to eke out a win.

Other things: Offense felt crisper overall. Play design looked generally good. Newton's cadence sounded different for the first time in a while and he did seem to be making an effort to get the ball out faster. Didn't always succeed, but did succeed a lot.

The biggest difference for me though was the flow. Football games are a lot like chess games with living pieces. You can go in with a strategy, but if somebody effectively counters that strategy you need to be able to shift gears. We did that today, and it was good to see.

On the defensive side, yes Eric Washington had a few questionable moments, but who doesn't their first day on a new job?  I can live with that. Lord knows the secondary didn't get abused anywhere near as badly as many people were expecting. Granted, Dak Prescott did not look good. Heck, few times he look like he was playing Horseshoes with the football. We'll face a truer test in future games.

Everybody's other major area of concern was the offensive line, and that was a mixed bag. After a couple of rough early plays, Taylor Moton seemed to anchor and lock things down. Van Roten did well next to him from what I saw, and Williams and Turner overall looked pretty good too.

Ryan Kalil, not as much. Kalil got shoved around a lot, and had a pretty blatant facemask penalty. I said in preseason that we might see more of that sort of thing from him this year as he's trying to compensate for declining athleticism. Hate to say it because Kalil is one of my favorite Panthers players of all time, but as the season goes on I'm going to be concerned.

The biggest story of all though?

Injuries.

Greg Olsen was gone early. We've got Ian Thomas, but with only Chris Manhertz behind him any thoughts of having a deadly two tight end set are probably out the window if Olsen can't return. He was seen on crutches in the second half, so he could be out for a while. Who knows?

Darryl Williams might be even worse off. He was carted off after taking a nasty shot to the leg. There'll be a lot of debate about whether the team should have brought him back so soon. And that's a really tough question.

Williams being out of course meant Amini Silatolu in, and from the botched extra point on it just looked bad. my guess is a lot of people will be calling for for Corey Robinson to start at right tackle this week. And maybe with another week of practice under his belt, he will. That said, Robinson was reported to have a foot injury and Silatolu has the advantage of familiarity. We'll see what happens there.

Bottom Line: Feelings, nothing more than (mixed) feelings. I'll be trying to forget my feelings of concern and just concentrating on the victory for the next 24 hours.

After that, it's unfortunately likely that the hill we have to climb this season just got a lot steeper.

[Chief Keek]

Greg and Darryl are most likely done for the season. I just hope Robinson can pickup enough of the offense to start next week, another game of Amini at RT is about all I can stand.

[Beast_3000]

Makes you almost not know how to feel because of the injuries.  I may have missed it in another thread but how long will the procedure on Samuel keep him out? I felt our separation on routes were lacking today. Samuel will eventually make the offense flow better because his speed dictates a cheating safety. 

[Mr. Scot]

From what I've read, Samuel shouldn't be out long.

Wide receivers in general didn't show up much today except for Wright, Funchess in the second half and McCaffrey if you count him.

[philit99]

Nice analysis. I believe both Greg and Daryl’s injuries are due to early season contact. I would not be shocked if both are back in three to four weeks. Daryl had a leg brace, so I have a better feeling than Greg. I can’t remember if Greg had screws put in his foot, if so his injury could be a career ender.

[BountyHunter]

In my simplistic view,  I never felt at any time that we were in danger of losing the game.  I think we were in control for the most part.  

[Mr. Scot]

I'm not a doctor and I don't play one on TV so I'm not even gonna try to speculate on those guys.

I'm just going to hope for the best.

[Rags]

Captian and Aimini are the word starters on their respective sides of the ball.

But overall solid week 1 and leaves a lot of promise. There's concern yes but theres also a lot to be excited about. Jackson held up really well. D-Line looked great.  Shaq showed up along Luke. And we have an actual NFL offense for once 

[bigskypanthersguy]

Far too stressful for an opener.  Hope all the injured players are okay.

[t96]

Moore has been disappointing since preseason game 1 and his speeding incident that night. Manufactured a touch for him early that he did nothing with and outside of that was invisible. All WRs were bad except for Wright who was okay with 3rd down clutch catches.

[kungfoodude]

Losing Williams may end up being the thing that wrecks our offensive line for the remainder of the season, especially if Robinson cannot get past Amini(either due to favoritism or just simply sucking). If Greg and Williams are out for the season, I am not very optimistic moving forward. Normally, I would say we might be able to weather a couple of those kind of losses but we are already a friggin' MASH unit. Just normal attrition is going to kill us on that offense because of how thin we are at some of these positions. 

I really hate to be pessimistic about a victory like that but I get this dreadful feeling that we may have won the battle but lost the war after some of those injuries. Let's hope we get some really good news about these injured guys this week.

[MHS831]

PLEASANT SURPRISES

Game balls:  Moton, Van Roten, CMC  on offense

Bradberry, Jackson, on defense (I know the front 7 deserved one, but the CBs were awesome)

Addison is a freak.  KK is a freak.  Luke is a freak.  We had great pressure on the QB. 

[Rags]

3 minutes ago, BountyHunter said:

In my simplistic view,  I never felt at any time that we were in danger of losing the game.  I think we were in control for the most part.  

Their lone T drive there were two plays were Dak had load of time because of ignored Holding calls.

We shut down their best offensive player and didn't let anyone Ramses Barden us. That's a good defense we have.

[4Corners]

I was just in the car listening to WBT and they had Hurney on and he didn’t seem concerned at all about Williams. He said he was going to be ok. Probably Marty just trying to put a positive spin on It.