Off-Season "To-Do's"

[CarolinaLivin]

Carolina Panthers

• Get Sam Darnold Comfortable in the Offense
• Bring Christian McCaffrey Along Slowly
• Pick a No. 3 Wide Receiver

To be fair, the Carolina Panthers have questions to answer on defense. Who plays where at linebacker (and which linebackers stay on the field on passing downs) is a matter that may not be decided until well into the summer.

But the biggest "to-dos" in Charlotte in 2021 are on offense—largely because the team has a new quarterback in Sam Darnold.

As David Newton reported for ESPN, Panthers coach Matt Rhule noted how important it is that Carolina's young skill-position players get as much work in as possible with the team's 23-year-old signal-caller.

"We have a young team," Rhule said. "It's a chance for us to develop some just very basic skills for a lot of guys, basic knowledge of our system, then try to grow from there."

However, there's one player we probably won't see much of—at least where contact is concerned. There's been nothing to indicate that star running back Christian McCaffrey won't be 100 percent for the season opener after an injury-marred 2020. Still, it's a safe bet that his participation in padded practices will mostly be done in a non-contact jersey.

With Curtis Samuel now catching passes in the nation's capital, the Panthers also need to decide who will serve as the team's third receiver. Free-agent acquisition David Moore is the front-runner in the early going, but if rookie Terrace Marshall Jr. proves to be a quick study, it won't be long before the LSU speedster is on the field.

Link: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2943731-every-nfl-teams-to-do-list-for-rest-of-the-2021-offseason

 

[07579394]

1 depends on the offence line

2 depends on the others RBs,i hope CMC take below 60% snaps

3 will be fine

[L-TownCat]

Do we really need a #3 when we have 2 #1s and a McCaffrey?  Depth would be great, another playmaker would be ridiculous.

[panthers55]

To me the biggest changes we need to make are on defense. I know folks give Snow a pass because we had so many rookies and young guys playing but honestly without guys like Brown and Chinn we would have been even worse. Our scheme between the 20s was awful. Our 3 man rush was so predictable and easy to block coupled with a passive zone defense where we didn't even attack receivers when they wandered into our zone looked like a high school team.  

Then we would go to more of a pressure look and blitz more frequently inside of the 20 and we got better results although still not good. 

We only keep other teams to less than 20 points on 4 occasions and won all 4 games. We gave up more than 30 points 6 times and lost them all.  Our offense controlled the ball fairly well or the defense would have looked much worse. We were 28th in red zone offensive scoring scoring TDs 50% of the time and allowed opposing teams to score TDs 65% of the time on defense for a ranking of 22nd.   Without a much improved defense it won't matter what the offense is doing. 

[SBBlue]

2 minutes ago, panthers55 said:

To me the biggest changes we need to make are on defense. I know folks give Snow a pass because we had so many rookies and young guys playing but honestly without guys like Brown and Chinn we would have been even worse. Our scheme between the 20s was awful. Our 3 man rush was so predictable and easy to block coupled with a passive zone defense where we didn't even attack receivers when they wandered into our zone looked like a high school team.  

Then we would go to more of a pressure look and blitz more frequently inside of the 20 and we got better results although still not good. 

We only keep other teams to less than 20 points on 4 occasions and won all 4 games. We gave up more than 30 points 6 times and lost them all.  Our offense controlled the ball fairly well or the defense would have looked much worse. We were 28th in red zone offensive scoring scoring TDs 50% of the time and allowed opposing teams to score TDs 65% of the time on defense for a ranking of 22nd.   Without a much improved defense it won't matter what the offense is doing. 

I agree.  I think perryman, reddick, horn are going to make a huge difference here.