Panthers Look Shaky in Preseason Opener

By clemsoncannon  |   Thursday, August 20, 2009  |  Comments( 0 )

Carolina Panthers
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Let me start by saying that I generally put very little faith in what I see during preseason games. These games are largely meaningless, usually little more than a glorified scrimmage game. Teams run very vanilla offenses and most of the game is played by guys who will see little or no playing time in the regular season. However, the game on Monday night did not bode well for the Panthers as we enter the 2009 season. The Giants appear to have easily exposed many of the weaknesses of this Panther squad.

The overall play of the team was sloppy. They fumbled 6 times, losing 4 of them. They also had a turnover on an interception. The returned fumble that ended the game was odd. Hunter Cantwell went back to pass on a play when he was supposed to take a knee. The ball got knocked loose and was returned for the winning TD. Strange play but I chalk that up to a young man trying to get noticed by the coaching staff. He succeeded, but it is probably not the kind of attention he had in mind.

The Panthers lost DT Maake Kemoeatu for the season on the first day of training camp. He was the team's best run stuffer and will be difficult to replace. This game proved how much he is missed. The Giants amassed 139 yards on the ground including 4 runs of 13 yards or more. Kemoeatu's replacement in this game was 2nd year pro Nick Hayden who was basically ineffective. The Panthers may need to find a suitable replacement at DT on the free agent market if they have any hope of stopping the run this year.

Julius Peppers was a nonfactor recording no tackles or sacks. Without a top level run stuffer in the middle opposing teams can double team Peppers and take him out of a lot of plays.

The offense was without Steve Smith who is still nursing a shoulder injury. As a result the passing game was nonexistent as Jake Delhomme went 5 of 9 for 38 yards. Muhsin Muhammed did not have a catch and Dwayne Jarrett had one catch for 3 yards. No Panther receiver had more than 2 catches in the game. This would seem to indicate that if opposing teams focus on Steve Smith the Panthers yet again will have no other viable passing options.

The one bright spot was probably the running game. DeAngelo Williams looked good running 6 times for 29 yards. Overall the team ran for 123 yards on 23 carries.

I'm trying to keep in mind that this was a meaningless preseason game. But there were definitely signs (big ones!) of problems with this team. Coach Fox and his staff have a lot of work to do to fix those problems before Philadelphia comes to town on September 13.
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