Panthers 2015 Preview: Complete Carolina Guide for Preseason, Season

The Carolina Panthers kick off their preseason slate Aug. 14 against the Buffalo Bills and open their regular-season schedule Sept. 13 with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The defending NFC South champions will be trying to make the playoffs for a third straight time for the first time in franchise history in what should be a competitive race.

The Panthers are hoping to keep their 2014 season-ending hot streak going through 2015. The best rushing team in the NFL after its bye week last season, Carolina finished the year with a top-10 offense and a top-five defense. That’s a team that can go far in a season and make some noise in the playoffs.

The key for 2015 will be building on that momentum, rather than falling back to the form that made them a bottom-10 team in both yards and yards allowed in the first 11 weeks of the season.

Was their season-ending hot streak a legitimate step forward, or was it a small sample size fluke? That’ll be the primary storyline as 2015 begins, but there are signs that point to it being a real step forward.

That the Panthers’ season-ending win streak corresponded to players such as Mike Remmers, Tre Boston and Bene Benwikere taking on larger roles bodes well to the team actually improving, and players such as Kony Ealy and Kelvin Benjamin took steps forward late in the season as well. There’s every reason to be optimistic the Panthers can improve on last year’s 7-8-1 record.

That they were just 7-8-1, of course, is a cause for concern. That’s a significantly worse record than your average playoff team and doesn’t leave much room for recovery if the overall average level of play slips from 2014. With the Atlanta Falcons boasting a new head coach, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers having a new franchise quarterback and the New Orleans Saints still being piloted by Drew Brees, a slight slip could cost the Panthers their postseason slot.

We’ve already covered the offense and defense in some depth. Now, let’s take a more macro look at the Panthers 2015 season prospects, with your guide to the most important games, players and things to watch for in this upcoming season.

Players to Watch During Preseason

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

The most important preseason game to watch will be the third, a “dress rehearsal” game against the New England Patriots on Aug. 28. That’s the game where the starters will likely play into the third quarter, and the Panthers couldn’t have asked for a better test than facing the defending Super Bowl champions.

To get better, you have to face the toughest opponents you can get, and while you won’t see any crazy, Belichickian game planning in a preseason game, having your defense try to stop Tom Brady while your offense works around players such as Devin McCourty and Dont’a Hightower is an excellent opportunity to see how you stack up.

The new addition you should be keeping an eye on the most is second-round rookie receiver Devin Funchess. All due respect to Shaq Thompson, who is an amazing athlete, but his 2015 utility is limited from being behind Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis on the depth chart. The only thing preventing Funchess from getting a major share of the passing game thrown his way is himself—the likes of Jerricho Cotchery and Ted Ginn Jr. aren’t enough to keep a talented player buried on the roster.

Between Funchess, Benamin and Greg Olsen, the Panthers have a set of humongous targets for Cam Newton to find down the field.

As a second receiver on what will likely be a run-heavy team, Funchess should see plenty of favorable matchups. If the Panthers can scheme him up against slot corners or linebackers, his sheer size and physicalness should make him nearly impossible to cover. He’s someone to get excited about.

Rookies Daryl Williams and Cameron Artis-Payne are two others to watch on offense as they fight position battles. Williams is battling for the right tackle job against Remmers, while Artis-Payne leads the fight to be Jonathan Stewart’s primary backup. You should see plenty of them in preseason action.

A player you might not see as much of but should get your full attention when he’s on the field is Charles Tillman. The last time he was fully healthy was in 2012, when he was an All-Pro cornerback for the Chicago Bears. He’s only played in 10 games since, however, so his status for 2015 is a major mystery. 

In a familiar scheme with his former defensive coordinator, Ron Rivera, Tillman is a low-risk, high-reward signing. It’ll be interesting to see how much work the team gives him during preseason. If he’s healthy and at a decent fraction of what he was in 2012, Tillman will provide a needed veteran’s presence to a promising but young cornerback group.

Also on defense, check out Ealy, who struggled at the beginning of last season but turned on the pass rush in the last month of the season. He's trending upwards for 2015.

Ealy will be in a battle with Frank Alexander and Wes Horton to try to replace Greg Hardy—or, more accurately, to replace Charles Johnson’s role as the secondary pass-rusher, as Johnson has taken Hardy’s role as the primary sackmeister on the team. Anyone could win the role, and it will likely be a rotation when all is said and done, but it’s likely best for the team in the long run if the second-year Ealy can win the job outright.

Most Crucial Regular-Season Games

Matt Rourke/Associated Press

Any team can win any Sunday, but some Sundays are more promising than others. Road trips to Dallas and Seattle look like tough days for the Panthers, while home games against Washington and Tampa Bay seem to be safer dates.

With only 16 games on a schedule, variance plays a major role—a dropped ball or key turnover in one of the closer games can have a huge impact on a team’s playoff chances.

Here are five games that could end up being the difference between a third-consecutive playoff appearance and watching the playoffs on TV come January.

Week 4 at Tampa Bay

The top three teams in the NFC South are likely to be so tightly packed that any advantage you can get in the division will be key. The most likely outcome probably has the Panthers, Saints and Falcons splitting their series with one another, so the best opportunity to earn the key divisional tiebreaker will be against the Buccaneers.

Tampa Bay was better than your average 2-14 team last year, and it will be breaking in a highly-touted rookie quarterback in Jameis Winston. The Panthers are the first NFC South team to get to play the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay, and that bodes well: If Winston is going to be a good NFL quarterback, the odds are he’ll get better as the season goes along.

The Saints and Falcons take their road trips to Tampa Bay in December, when the game may have slowed down for Winston. The Panthers might get to take advantage of a quarterback making only his fourth NFL start and earn a key divisional win early.

Week 7 vs. Philadelphia, Sunday Night Football

While the Panthers had the worst record of a playoff team last season, the Eagles had the best record among teams that stayed at home. If divisions didn’t exist, the Eagles would have played in January while the Panthers watched from home.

However, the Eagles have gone through a chaotic offseason of their own, gaining a new quarterback and running back in place, and losing players such LeSean McCoy and Evan Mathis in the process as head coach Chip Kelly continues to reshape the team to fit his offense. It’s an opportunity—on national television—to get a big win over a potential wild-card rival and prove that the Panthers deserved to be in the playoffs last year with their end-of-season surge.

Week 8 vs. Indianapolis, Monday Night Football

Back-to-back nationally televised games highlight the roughest part of the Panthers’ schedule. Besides the Colts and Eagles, the Panthers also have to take on the Seahawks and Packers between Weeks 6 and 9.  The season opens softly, so there’s every chance the Panthers could win their first four games and enter the stretch undefeated. If they can even split the games in this stretch, that would be a huge boon for the team’s playoff hopes.

The Colts are probably the most vulnerable of the three playoff teams the Panthers face here—the Seahawks game is on the road, and the Packers might be the best team in football. The Colts have a transcendent quarterback in Andrew Luck but question marks elsewhere. This is another spot where the Panthers could steal a win against a double-digit win team from 2014 in front of a loud crowd in Charlotte. 

If they can get to Week 10 at 6-2, you can start penciling them in for the playoffs.

Week 10 at Tennessee

The other team liable to start a rookie quarterback this season, this is another opportunity for the Panthers to take a game on the road. Last season, the Panthers won only three games on the road, and they face a rough road slate this year with games at Seattle, Dallas and the New York Giants in-conference.

Winning both AFC South road games—Tennessee and Jacksonville—will be key to having a solid road record this season. Both are winnable, though this one is likely to be the harder of the two.

Week 14 vs. Atlanta

The Panthers roadmap to a playoff appearance likely involves holding serve at home in the NFC South. Last year, they lost to New Orleans and Atlanta at home and had to scramble to pick up late-season wins on the road against both to make the playoffs. That’s a less than optimal strategy, clearly, and one the team would like to avoid in 2015.

Of all the NFC South teams, Atlanta looks the best poised to knock the Panthers off of their spot atop the division. They will have a new defense courtesy of ex-Seahawks coordinator Dan Quinn, and any offense featuring Matt Ryan, Roddy White and Julio Jones can put up fireworks.

This is probably the toughest of any of the divisional home games and one the Panthers will have the toughest time winning.

Reasons for Optimism

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Newton Isn’t Injured

Last year, Newton came into training camp recovering from surgery on his left ankle. He also suffered fractured ribs before the season started. Neither of those were fully healed by the time the season ended, and then he topped it all off with a scary car crash and back injury in December. This goes a long way to explaining why his statistics—his completion percentage, touchdown rate, yards per attempt and so forth— dropped off a little.

Now that he's healthy, and with the potential for Funchess and Benjamin to be the best receiving duo the team has seen since Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad, Newton might just take that next step forward in his development and move into the top 10 quarterbacks in the league. A healthy Newton is a powerful weapon—it allows the team to move Newton around more and take advantage of his athleticism, which adds another dimension to the offense.

Stewart Looks Like His Old Self

Over the last five weeks of the regular season, only Lamar Miller was more efficient on the ground than Stewart.  Stewart’s 5.34 yards per carry is probably unsustainable over the long run, but he still managed his most efficient running season in three years after injury-plagued 2012 and 2013 seasons.

Now, with DeAngelo Williams out of town, Stewart has the chance to finally become a full-time starter in the NFL. The 2014 version of Stewart looked like the explosive, dynamic Stewart who was so tantalizing from 2008-11. Injuries have derailed his career—it’s worth noting that Stewart missed three games last season, as well—but if Stewart can get back on track and stay healthy, he’s a Pro Bowl running back waiting to happen. That can push the Panthers offense up to top-10 levels.

Amazing Linebackers

Adding a first-round talent in Thompson to the best duo in football in Kuechly and Davis is simply unfair. Kuechly arguably took over the title of top middle linebacker in the game during his sophomore season in 2013, and now that San Francisco’s pair Patrick Willis and NaVorro Bowman have broken up, there’s no doubt the Panthers boast the best linebacking corps in football.

Thompson may not even get to start, thanks to the solid run defense of A.J. Klein. David Mayo was a tackling machine in college, and Jason Trusnik was an underrated free-agent signing.

If you were going to put together the ultimate NFL team by taking position units from various squads, you would have the Panthers linebacking corps as the heart of your defense, no question. The starters are great, the depth is solid, they’ve got rookies with potential—there’re no weaknesses here. That’s the corps the Panthers have built their defense around, and if they make a deep playoff run, it’s likely to be sparked by these guys.

Reasons for Pessimism

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

Offensive Line is Questionable

Only center Ryan Kalil has even one full season of solid play in his recent history on this line; the other four slots bring with them uncertainty. The question marks at guard aren’t too bad, as rookies, Trai Turner and Andrew Norwell took over starting roles in midseason and played well to end the year. The question marks there are just if they can continue their solid rookie seasons and build on them—that’s a positive question mark to have, all things considered, but it’s still an unknown quantity.

At tackle, however, the Panthers are lacking. At right tackle, Remmers didn’t allow a sack during his seven starts to close the season out, but it remains to be seen if the career practice-squad player is a starting-caliber player or if he had a lucky run against relatively low-caliber opposition. He struggled in the playoffs against Seattle, giving up plenty of pressure on his quarterback. Fourth-round rookie Daryl Williams might be a better option to start, but there’s a reason he fell to Day 3 in the draft: it looks like he’s not quite ready to step in on Day 1.

At least the Panthers have some options at right tackle. At left tackle, they’re stuck with Michael Oher, who was bad while closing out his time in Baltimore. He was bad last year in Tennessee. He’s struggled so far in training camp, according to ESPN.com's David Newton. The man who was supposed to give him some competition, Jonathan Martin, abruptly retired before training camp began.

It’s Oher or bust, and while that’s probably better than Byron Bell was, that says more about Bell than it does about Oher.

Roman Harper is Old

Harper was a liability at times as a strong safety. The 32-year-old multiple-time Pro Bowler is the weak link in the secondary. Don’t let his four interceptions fool you—he’s lost a few steps, and the lack of speed exposes the poor angles he takes to ball carriers.

Kurt Coleman, the possible replacement, is more suited to Boston’s free safety position. With Boston and two promising young cornerbacks in Josh Norman and Benwikere, Harper is the weak link in the secondary. He's a below-average player at this point who is an active liability in coverage, ranked 66^th among safeties in that category by Pro Football Focus in 2014.

He’s still capable of making great tackles when he gets to the ball carrier, but if his decline continues in 2015, he’ll be the weak link of what should be a good defense.

Whither the Pass Rush?

In 2013, with Hardy playing a full season, the Panthers put up 346 total quarterback pressures, according to PFF—62 sacks, 72 hits and 212 hurries. Last season, that number dropped to 274 total pressures—41 sacks, 60 hits and 173 hurries. They never could replace Hardy’s production.

The problem is not the need for a top pass-rusher. Johnson didn’t quite have as good of a season as Hardy had in 2013, but he did see his pressure numbers go up, and he shouldered the role as the top pressureman. The problem is that no one stepped up behind him to fill the void he left as the secondary pass-rusher. The right end position was a struggle all season long, as no one filled Hardy’s shoes to any degree of satisfaction.

The two best options for generating that secondary pass-rush presence are second-year player Ealy, who found some success over the last month of the regular season after struggling some earlier on, and Alexander, who was suspended twice last season for violating the substance abuse policy.

Neither of them has shown over a full season that they can be up in the 60+ pressure range that Johnson filled behind Hardy. Either player, or a combination of the two, needs to step up and fill that void. Pressure on the quarterback would make everyone else’s job on defense much easier.

Crucial Players for 2015

Chuck Burton/Associated Press

If the Carolina Panthers have a good season in 2015, it’s likely that Kuechly will have a good season as well, leading the defense, flying over the field and making tackles. However, it’s likely that Kuechly will have a good season even if the Panthers as a whole don’t—he’s that good of a player.

That’s not the kind of player we’re looking for here. We’re looking for players who played well when the Panthers won last year but played poorly when they lost—or are replacing a player who fits that pattern.   Yes, Kuechly, Johnson and Olsen all put up better numbers when the team won than when they lost, but they put up perfectly good numbers in the losses, as well. They’re players you can count on to play well, through thick and thin.

These five players did not fit those criteria last season. They’re players who need to show the form they did when the Panthers won last season if they want to help the team make it back to the playoffs.

QB Newton

Quarterback is the most important position for most NFL teams, but Newton’s splits were especially surprising. In victories last season, Newton had a quarterback rating of 92.7, completing nearly 60 percent of his passes. In losses, it fell to 74.6 and 57 percent.

Most significant might be the turnovers. He threw 10 touchdowns in both victories and losses, but his interception total ballooned from three to 11. He was even less effective on the ground, dropping from 5.5 yards per carry to just 4.3. It’s true for most teams that they’ll go as far as their quarterback takes them, but Newton’s volatility might be the most significant of all quarterbacks.

A lot of it comes down to mobility: When Newton’s able to get out and use his speed, it tightens up the opposing defense. They have to set spies on him and devote a significant portion of their defensive resources to restrain him. That sets up passing lanes and reduces the amount of throws into coverage Newton has to make.

Once Newton began to get healthy last season, he ran more, and his stats improved. Hopefully, that carries over into 2015.

SS Harper

Harper’s physical attributes might be leaving him, but he still has the veteran savvy that a 10-year veteran brings to the table. His play improved significantly when Boston took over at free safety, as they showed more chemistry than Harper and Thomas DeCoud had. Basically, when the Panthers surrounded Harper with younger, faster pieces, they allowed Harper to stay closer in the box and work more in the run game, which is where he can still be a solid player.

If the team continues to put him in situations in which he can excel (leaving the coverage duties to younger players), Harper can still contribute to a winning season.

CB Benwikere

One of those younger players who can help Harper out is Benwikere. A fifth-round pick in last year’s draft, Benwikere had some issues in the first month of the season before missing time with an ankle injury. After missing six weeks, though, Benwikere came back focused and ready for action.

Over the last seven weeks, including the playoffs, Benwikere was PFF’s fourth-rated cornerback, recording all but one of his passes deflected and his interception. A rookie improving significantly as the season goes along generally indicates that the game slowing down for them and that they're gaining the knowledge and confidence to play at the NFL level.

Whether it’s as the nickel corner or the second starter, depending on Tillman’s status, Benwikere needs to continue the form he ended last season with, rather than the form he started on, if the Panthers are going to have a solid secondary.

OT Remmers

The optimist’s view of Remmers looks at what he was able to do in his limited time as a starter last season and sees the roses. He allowed no sacks, according to PFF, and only five regular-season pressures. His play against the likes of Junior Galette and Jacquies Smith were exemplary, as he allowed no pressures against either New Orleans or Tampa Bay.

The pessimist’s view of Remmers sees a downward trend developing. After allowing just one quarterback pressure in his first three starts, Remmers allowed 13 in his last four, including being absolutely destroyed against Michael Bennett and Seattle. Now, Seattle’s defense has made a lot of tackles look foolish, but a two-hit, five-hurry game is something of a nightmare scenario, even if Newton was able to avoid taking any sacks.

It’s not just pressures, either. After committing just one penalty in his first four games, Remmers drew four flags in his last three. His run blocking also dropped off.

Six games isn’t a large sample size to draw from—Seattle’s a tough team to play, and maybe if that had been his first game rather than his last, we would think of his performance as being inconsistent rather than on a downward trend. Still, Remmers needs to play like he did when he first entered the lineup for the right tackle position to be solid.

OT Oher

In games the Panthers won last season, left tackle Bell was the sixth-worst offensive tackle in football, per PFF, with a grade of -10.5. In games the Panthers lost last season, Bell was far and away the worst offensive tackle in football, with a grade of -30.9, more than 10 points worse than his closest competitor.

The Panthers were able to win just fine when Bell was simply bad, as opposed to terrible. They don’t need his replacement, Oher, to suddenly become Joe Thomas or anything of that nature. They’re used to playing and succeeding despite their left tackle struggling. They just need him to be run-of-the-mill bad and not an utter disaster.

For the record, Oher was the ninth-worst tackle in football last season, per PFF, a full seven slots ahead of Bell. However, that’s a cumulative stat, and Oher put up his poor number in just 11 games. He still graded out better than Bell on a per-snap basis, but it wasn’t nearly as large of a gap. That was playing the easier right tackle position, as well.

We can only wait and see if the Oher experiment will work out for Carolina.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers. Follow him @BryKno on twitter.