Gil Brandt: Panthers Offensive Scheme Hampering Newton

[fieryprophet]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000081558/article/cam-newton-hampered-by-carolina-panthers-offensive-approach

1) The Panthers' offensive approach isn't working.

For the 2012 season, the Panthers have implemented a spread-based offensive package that is very similar to what Newton successfully ran at Auburn. The hope likely was that this would fit Newton's skill set even better than Carolina's offense did last season. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way. NFL defenses are much faster than college defenses, and they've been able to handle the Panthers' college-style attack, hurting Newton as a runner. While it's true that the Washington Redskins have been able to run a similar offense with Robert Griffin III, they have a solid tight end in Fred Davis. Which leads me to my next point...

2) Jeremy Shockey wasn't brought back.

Shockey is a blocking tight end whose presence is clearly missed this season. Rather than re-sign the veteran, who also caught 37 passes for 455 yards and four scores with the Panthers in 2011, Carolina added a third running back in Mike Tolbert. Perhaps the Panthers felt that a blocking tight end would not be necessary in their new spread attack, but Newton's been hampered by this personnel decision.

3) Opponents have adjusted.

In 2011, Newton was enormously successful against six-man defensive fronts, garnering a quarterback rating of 158.3 when playing against such schemes. Teams undoubtedly noticed that, because he's not seeing those six-man fronts anymore this season. Instead, opponents are countering with five-man fronts. It appears to be a sound strategy, because Newton's quarterback rating against five-man fronts is 35.4.

[ShutDwn]

Good to know someone with credibility is actually watching the games. I've brought up every one of those points.

Cam is a goldmine for the first coordinator that stops treating him like a college QB.

[Kuech the Sneak]

Finally somebody actually recognizes this instead of just spitting out that garbage "sophomore slump" line

[rayzor]

yep.

chud too focused on being creative rather than effective.

[rayzor]

i like that they mentioned shockey. he most certainly should have been brought back...and that shouldn't have prevented us from bringing in tolbert either.

[davos]

The word 'hampering' is a good one to use

If god forbid Cam goes down, its not like we're going to be using the same offense with Derek Anderson or any other QB. It going to be "alright, new scheme, more pro-style attack guys" That is why I think our offensive scheme is so meh. Its so completely built around 1 guy that when a defense keys in on him, it can be easily be stopped. Instead of having a playbook for the team, they made a playbook overly catered to Newton rather than forcing him to adapt to pro-style. Chud went backwards this season.

Build an offensive strategy that Cam can learn and teach him how to apply his amazing skills within it.

[Darth Biscuit]

Agree on all counts... and if they don't change it, we really are screwed. Not sure why they would want to tinker with what worked so well last season.

[Marguide]

What I don't get is why we have to wait until week 6 to adjust (and that's assuming we do adjust).

These things have been obvious at least since week 4 to the non-professional. It's good to hear someone well respected validate what we've seen.

[MattB]

Chud definitely needs to keep things more simple. There is no foundation or consistency to what the offense is doing right now. Every week it's completely different.

[Wyank]

What I don't get is why we have to wait until week 6 to adjust (and that's assuming we do adjust).

These things have been obvious at least since week 4 to the non-professional. It's good to hear someone well respected validate what we've seen.

Doubt it. Probably worked on execution.

[Rubi]

Yep this dude is right on point with everything else the huddle has been saying about our offensive scheme.

Last year We ran what I thought was a standard balanced offense. We had a little bit of this and that mixed in...but overall it was a 2 TE system which we were able to do different things with Cams skill set

[Snake]

What we do next week well tell us about this season.

[mwright350]

I agree with this article on all points.

I'm glad someone other than us is paying attention.

[rayzor]

Yep this dude is right on point with everything else the huddle has been saying about our offensive scheme.

Last year We ran what I thought was a standard balanced offense. We had a little bit of this and that mixed in...but overall it was a 2 TE system which we were able to do different things with Cams skill set

overall it was pretty balanced, but it was more pass heavy in the first half and more run heavy in the second half of the season....and that was fine. i attributed it to chud adapting the offense to deal with the defenses adapting to what we were doing.

this year it just seems like chud thought we were somewhere else.

i REALLY hope that rivera put chud back in his box and told him to spend his game planning time working on a whole game rather than developing that one trickeration play that no one has ever seen before (which i'm starting to be convinced that was limited to watching a bunch of kids football movies and seeing what other hidden genius lied within them).