Week 2 GDT (TNF!!): Bucs @ Panthers

[iknowcool]

 

Tough loss on Sunday, but we have a quick turnaround this week.  Not only is our Thursday night game coming early in the season (easier on the players than if it was later in the year), but it will be a home game for us as well.

I was confident going into the Rams game and although we lost, it was only by 3 points despite a barrage of self-inflicted mistakes.  The Bucs won't be a walk over but I like this match-up for our team.

Our pass rush looked much improved last week vs 2018.  On paper, it should look even better on Thursday.  We didn't play our 3-4 base a lot last week, but if I were to guess, that had a lot to do with the Rams running no huddle and 3 WR set most of the time.  We should see more of it this week.  Addison was invisible last week, but he has 8 career sacks against the Bucs (more than against any other team.  We have also more often than not owned Winston.  No team has picked Winston off more than us (9 times), with only 7 touchdowns.  

This game will come down to Cam Newton.  Newton started off well last week, but there were about 4 throws where he was wildly off the mark.  It didn't look shoulder related as much as rust and of course, the fact that Newton has always had a tendency to overthrow his mark from time to time.  We need him to be better against the Bucs because we have the talent around him to cause the Bucs problems.  In 4 career games against the Bucs, C-Mac has 400+ total yards and 3 TDs.

[iknowcool]

Cam might be done 

[Zithers2]

Well, on the bright side it looks like Cam has some zip back and can throw it deep again. The bad news is that he was wildly inaccurate tonight while making those throws. Maybe he just needs to work through it since he hasn't thrown like this in two years, with shaking off rust and getting his timing down with the receivers. Plus the ball was wet. Not that it really matters. It isn't like we're gonna bench him for Kyle Allen or *gulp* Will Grier.

Defense wore down in the second half again, at least in the run game. Pass rush still didn't look great either, with half of our sacks being of the coverage variety.

We didn't even try to run the ball really. Cam still has no runs designed specifically for him. That trick play to end the game was the worst **** I've ever seen. Everyone - and I do mean EVERYONE - knew that was gonna be a direct snap. Just pathetic. The fact that Cam was so sloppy and we still almost won just makes me more annoyed tbh. Also Daryl Williams is trash. I can't believe we traded up to 37 to draft someone and he isn't capable of beating this guy for the gig. Did we see different games when Moton began last year at LT or something? When Daryl was re-signed I was under the impression Moton would get the first shot over there. Dude was getting beat like he was Tyreek Hill's child by Shaq Barrett. Horrible. We didn't even try to help him either, or do screens to help out with the jailbreak blitzes they kept doing. Just a terribly called game by Norv.

At least Joey Slye and Michael Palardy are making for a good duo!

[iknowcool]

Cam Newton looked horrible

Daryl Williams looked horrible

Norv Turner was horrible 

And Rivera after the game seemed like a guy who was feeling the pressure.  Newton at least blamed himself completely for the loss.  Rivera for some reason can't accept the fact last night's final play-call was TERRIBLE.  It was like they had Madden hooked up and were like ish, lets run the (Fake) Philly Special exactly how they run it in the game.  If you are going to be adamant that Newton's foot is fine, then you can't act mad when people wonder why you didn't run it with the greatest QB run-scorer in history.

I don't know where we go from here.  I'm not sure I can watch 14 more games of this offense.  I love Newton, but he's wasting DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel.   But I could never blame him fully or be mad at him.  He did about as well as we could have expected for 6+ years with middling talent around him.

Edited September 13, 2019 by iknowcool