Barely escaping the worst team in the league...

[CatMan72]

Again, the Steelers escaped them by 3 points - so I guess they suck too.

[doghead28]

we will continue to have trouble stopping the run rest of the way it is not going to change, hopefully some guys back from injury additions from draft and free agent or two will help for next year,

[CatMan72]

But on another note, congrats to the Dolphins for escaping the Broncos... oh wait, nevermind.

I guess that was Moore's fault?

[bleys]

Well yea that seems to be the case but what is the reason? Depth? Coaching?

I also don't get why people keep dragging on a conversation with a guy who is just trying to get a rise out of people.

yeah, I wasn't responding to him.. I don't get it either.. people see a troll and are still too stupid to not respond.. what else would you expect from this fanbase? their true colors have been written on the wall for weeks now...

as for why our defense struggles later...

people have to realize Beason played more than 95% of plays (from a Rivera press conference).. and now we are expecting 2-3 to play that position while we only have so many LBers to play altogether..

add to that TD out, we have nothing but backups without any solid players behind them to fill in.. do people really think the "stamina" option is turned off in real life?

and to Mav.. thanks for the link.. I still can't find the exact stats I want to see, rush per half and per quarter/per game.. not trying to overcomplicated it, but I know what I'm seeing on Sundays... the 1st half isn't my concern.. it's the 2nd half when we start really getting run on and games are lost..

[Fox007]

I just have to believe the defense will be better next year, I cannot bear to witness this type of shenanigans and tomfoolery that's going on by our D in the second half.

[CLG]

I guess McDermott disagrees as well since he gave the defense a pep talk on Saturday night and told them they need to start playing up to the level of our offense and carrying their weight.

I don't think a coach stands in front of a room full of his players and yells at them about stepping up if he thinks the offense is setting his defense up for failure.

not doubting you, but how do you know this? Wouldnt mind readin that article if there is one.

[davos]

yeah, I wasn't responding to him.. I don't get it either.. people see a troll and are still too stupid to not respond.. what else would you expect from this fanbase? their true colors have been written on the wall for weeks now...

as for why our defense struggles later...

people have to realize Beason played more than 95% of plays (from a Rivera press conference).. and now we are expecting 2-3 to play that position while we only have so many LBers to play altogether..

add to that TD out, we have nothing but backups without any solid players behind them to fill in.. do people really think the "stamina" option is turned off in real life?

and to Mav.. thanks for the link.. I still can't find the exact stats I want to see, rush per half and per quarter/per game.. not trying to overcomplicated it, but I know what I'm seeing on Sundays... the 1st half isn't my concern.. it's the 2nd half when we start really getting run on and games are lost..

Beason is the lifeblood of not just our defense but our entire team mentality wise imo. His loss was the biggest that could have happened and it of course did.

[bleys]

We've also had the time of possession advantage in several of our losses... we lost those games because our defense gave up points early and often.

IIRC, I believe that was early on.. maybe another game later, but for the most part, the last few games that defense hasn't been horrible in the 1st half..

which is why I'm trying to find stats by the quarter or half per game..

[ed bell]

not doubting you, but how do you know this? Wouldnt mind readin that article if there is one.

Here's an article outlining some of that:

http://www.panthers.com/news/article-2/Panthers-finish-what-they-started/1940f8ea-4bb0-4ecf-a0c8-cb5e7a6dbede

"The biggest thing was, ‘Hey, give us a chance to win,' " Panthers defensive coordinator Sean McDermott said. "In the first quarter of the Detroit game, we did that with sacks and turnovers, but after that I didn't think we gave our football team a chance to win. There's not a guy in that room that felt good about that, myself included.

"Sunday, we made huge plays down the stretch. They had a couple of opportunities late down eight to score and tie it up, and we answered. That was huge."

The emphasis on finishing started well before the game. McDermott showed the team a video of its best plays Saturday night at the team hotel, and then he kept the positive vibe going in the hours leading up to kickoff.

"He wanted us to turn the page and start fresh," linebacker Dan Connor said. "We had a lot of pre-game talks to get our heads on right. We knew we had to come out and attack."

[teeray]

Does anyone still think YPP is a useful offensive stat?? I think that ship has sailed.

[bleys]

McDermott can dance on tables and perform magic tricks but he's only going to get so much out of our backups who have no backups..

[mav1234]

if you wanted to do it per game, you could go to the "Gamebook" for each game and check there. See http://www.panthers.com/schedule/game/2011/regular12/ for an example, click "Gamebook", then scroll down to first half summary, find the difference between that and the end game summary

example from indy:

first half indy rushes: Total 14 70 5.0 17 1

first half indy passes: Total 6 2 19 2/8 0 14 0 43.1

final indy rushes: Total 23 105 4.6 17 1

final indy passes: Total 29 15 226 2/8 1 56 2 60.4

so in the second half indy rushed 9 times and passes 23. but I know they were the exception since they were down big.

could set up a spreadsheet to easily calculate this stuff for you if you just copy and paste numbers, but that may be more effort than you really care to do. I am a bit curious tho because it did feel like AP, CJ, and Turner really hurt us in the 2nd half.

oh hey, one neat thing I just saw from this...

cam was 13/20 at the half

and finished 20/27 in the game... he threw only 7 passes in the last 2 quarters but he completed all of them for 90 yards.

[Fox007]

McDermott can dance on tables and perform magic tricks but he's only going to get so much out of our backups who have no backups..

It might be more entertaining to watch him do that than to watch our defense.

[panthers55]

I was listening to NFl Sirius this afternoon and Tim Ryan (he did our game on Sunday) was talking about the Panthers and his perspective after talking to the team and then watching them. His perspective was that the offense right now is 2 years ahead of the defense in terms of their ability and development. He pointed out that the talent on the offense was much better and he mentioned that with the exception of Newton, more of the offensive players were veterans with more experience than the defense. He mentioned for example that Kalil is the best center in the league and he has seen them all.

He didn't believe the defensive scheme was the issue simply that they were very young and inexperienced. He pointed out that a few players on the defense were pretty good,Gamble, Johnson, Hardy and Anderson but there were too few of them with talent with key guys on IR. He did mention that he talked with Rivera who said that both Davis's and Beason's rehab were ahead of schedule. Ryan mentioned that it would be crazy though to put too many eggs into the Davis basket at this point. He said the offense can play with anybody right now and felt that the majority of the attention in the offseason needs to be about fixing and progressing the defense. He said if that were done we would be a contender in the league.

Pretty much the same thing many of us have been saying as well.