Panthers vs. Titans: Carolina Grades, Notes and Quotes
The Carolina Panthers weren’t perfect on Sunday against the Tennessee Titans, but their season remains so. The 27-10 wasn’t the most impressive victory Carolina has had, but they all count as the Panthers continue their march toward a playoff berth, a bye and potential NFC home-field advantage.
The first half was all about Cam Newton and his hot start. Newton completed his first 11 passes, setting a personal career high, as the Panthers offense operated very smoothly over the game's first two drives. However, the Titans proved that they are at least more competitive than their 2-6 record would indicate, hanging in there to keep it a 14-10 game at halftime.
Then, the defenses set in.
Both teams made defensive adjustments that helped them out in the second half. Tennessee’s pass rush repeatedly and continuously got to Newton in the second half, keeping the Panthers mostly grounded for the third quarter.
However, the Panthers defense really put the clamps on the Titans offense. After putting up 166 yards in the first half, the Titans were held to just 23 yards and one first down in the second half, before their final drive, when the game was already decided. It wasn’t a blowout by any stretch of the imagination, but Carolina’s ferocious defense just kept Tennessee from doing anything in the second half, giving the Panthers the field-position battle and allowing them to expand their lead.
Obviously, the Panthers would have preferred to not have so much pressure on Cam Newton in the second half. They obviously would have liked to have put the game away earlier against a team that now sits at 2-7, well out of contention even in the poor AFC South. They obviously would have liked to roll in a laugher.
Still, even if the win wasn’t the fabled complete performance the team has been looking for, it was more than enough to win comfortably and continue its perfect season, one of only 27 9-0 teams in NFL history.
Grades
1 of 7
Position | Grade |
QB | A |
RB | A- |
WR | B |
TE | A |
OL | C- |
DL | A |
LB | C |
DB | B |
Special Teams | B+ |
Coaching | B |
Quarterbacks
Newton had his second-most accurate day in his NFL career, completing 21 of 26 passes for 217 yards and a touchdown and rushing for another touchdown to put the game away late. He didn’t end up with a massive day passing, but he was hyper-efficient, averaging 8.3 yards per attempt and finding the open man consistently throughout the day.
Running Backs
Jonathan Stewart ended with 91 yards rushing on 22 carries and a touchdown, averaging 4.1 yards per carry and having a very efficient day. Mike Tolbert added a 16-yard reception for a key first down late.
Wide Receivers
Ted Ginn and Devin Funchess both went over 40 yards, with Ginn making some clutch catches late. Ginn also was the only target Newton missed more than once, however, with four of Newton’s five incompletions being marked as targeted for Ginn. Jerricho Cotchery had the other incomplete pass, as the receivers combined for just 100 of Newton’s 217 passing yards.
Tight Ends
Greg Olsen led all receivers with eight catches for 80 yards, though he was kept out of the end zone. Ed Dickson got the tight end touchdown instead, catching three passes for 21 yards and the score.
Offensive Line
It was the worst day for Carolina’s pass protection since last year’s game against Philadelphia, as Newton was sacked five times and hit seven more. The Panthers redeemed themselves somewhat in the rushing game, especially in the fourth quarter, as the team averaged 3.5 yards per carry and scored two touchdowns, but they struggled containing Tennessee’s defensive line for most of the game.
Defensive Line
Tennessee was held to just 64 yards rushing and 3.0 yards per carry, as lead back Antonio Andrews ended with just eight yards on 11 carries. The team only sacked Marcus Mariota one time—Kony Ealy had one late—but Kawann Short had a couple of key pressures and a recovered fumble as well as they squelched all of Tennessee’s offense in the second half.
Linebackers
A quieter day than usual for the Panthers linebackers. Luke Kuechly led all Panthers with eight tackles, including two for a loss, but Thomas Davis was held without a tackle and A.J. Klein had just four. Tight end Delanie Walker also had a good day, with three receptions for 52 yards, and at least some of that blame is attributed to the linebackers.
Secondary
Kurt Coleman had a key interception in the third quarter while it was still a one-score game, as the Panthers played the field-position game with the Titans. They held Marcus Mariota under 200 yards passing in total, and Josh Norman had a pass deflection late. It wasn’t a day filled with highlights, but it was a solid performance against an undermanned receiving corps.
Special Teams
Ted Ginn nearly had a touchdown—called back, thanks to a Joe Webb block in the back—but still had 61 yards on four punt returns. Graham Gano made both of his field-goal attempts, and Brad Nortman helped out when the Panthers were winning the field-position game. The only major black mark would be allowing Dexter McCluster to average 17.2 yards per kickoff return, but that wasn’t a major negative.
Coaching
Riverboat Ron failed to show up on one key, but defensible, situation midway through the fourth quarter. On 4th-and-1, from the 1-yard line and nursing a seven-point lead with 9:10 left in the game, Rivera opted to send Gano out for a 19-yard field goal.
Getting a two-score lead with less than 10 minutes left to go is an entirely defensible position, and it ended up working out for the team, but when you have Cam Newton and Jonathan Stewart, the odds of picking up a yard is very high—and even a failure would have left a rookie quarterback buried in the shadow of his own end zone.
Cam Newton Starts Hot
2 of 7
Newton started the game with a completion and then another and then another.
Before the first half was over, Newton had completed his first 11 passes—his best start in his career. It took until 5:43 was left in the second half before Newton finally failed to hit a target, missing Ted Ginn.
Newton finished the first half with a career high in completion percentage, going 12-of-13 for 126 yards and a touchdown. He didn’t have a ton of deep passes, but was efficient and effective regularly and repeatedly. It didn’t help the Panthers jump out to a huge lead—they were up just 14-10 at the half—but it was still an impressive performance.
Entering the game, Newton ranked 34th out of 36 qualified quarterbacks with a 53.7 percent completion rate. Part of that is due to Newton attempting deeper passes than the average quarterback, and part of it is due to drops by receivers, but Newton hasn’t exactly been the most accurate passer in his career. Seeing a career 58.5 percent completion passer being nearly perfect was a surprising sight.
Newton’s career-best completion percentage in a game was 88.2 percent in a 2013 win over St. Louis. While the improved defensive pressure in the second half kept Newton from hitting that mark, it was still his most accurate day since that day and his second-most accurate passing day ever.
Tennessee’s Pass Rush Creates Nightmares
3 of 7
Don’t blame the pass rush for Tennessee’s 2-6 start. According to Football Outsiders’ advanced stats, the Titans had the league's second-best adjusted sack rate entering the game. Their overall sack total was down thanks to teams frequently running against them, but their pass rush has been a legitimate threat all season long.
They proved as much against Carolina. Entering the game, Carolina had allowed just 13 sacks all season long. Tennessee, however, managed to get to Newton often, especially starting in the second half.
Newton was sacked five times and hit seven more. That’s the most sacks the Panthers have allowed since Newton was sacked nine times against Philadelphia last season.
In general, Carolina’s offensive line has been much improved from last season, giving Newton more time to work and opening lanes for the running game. Tennessee, however, gave Panthers fans flashbacks of 2014’s poor pass protection, going a long way to explain why the game was as close as it was for as long as it was.
The Titans are not a good team yet, but they have plenty of interesting pieces on defense going forward. This wasn’t a case of the Panthers’ offensive line playing poorly so much as it was the Titans defense being of a surprisingly high quality.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
Carolina Seeking Rushing Records
4 of 7
For the 20th consecutive game, the Panthers topped 100 yards on the ground. Winning helps with that, of course—teams in the lead rush more than teams trying to make up a deficit—but this is a team built around a rather old-fashioned strategy of pounding the football and playing tough defense.
How old-school is it? The last team to have 20 consecutive games with 100 or more yards rushing was the Chicago Bears in 1989 and 1990. It’s been decades since anyone else has been as effective as the Panthers have been at pounding the football…
…except the Seattle Seahawks. The Panthers became the first team in a generation to put together a 20-game, 100-yard rushing streak only because the Seahawks are playing on Sunday night. They’re sitting at a 19-game streak, with the chance to extend it against the Arizona Cardinals Sunday night.
The Panthers and Seahawks aren’t doing it in the same way as the teams that put together this streak in the 1980s and 1970s. Each of them boasts a rushing quarterback—either a brilliant improviser like Russell Wilson or a bowling ball like Cam Newton—to go along with a strong traditional running attack.
The Panthers are fine being in the same conversation with the recent Seahawks, what with their Super Bowl win and NFC Championships. They’ve been the class of the NFC since 2012, and that’s the company Carolina wants to be in.
If Carolina continues this streak throughout the rest of the regular season, it could join the six teams that have put up 27-game streaks, all in the 1970s. That’s definitely throwback football—and successful, too, as those teams went a combined 139-53 in those games and picked up four Super Bowl rings in the process.
Ron Rivera: 9-0 Record 'Elephant in the Room'
5 of 7
The Panthers are 9-0. Have we mentioned that enough? They’re undefeated, they’ve won all their games and they’ve yet to be beaten. They’ve held the lead when all of their games have been over and have not trailed a team after the final whistle yet this season.
Apparently, Ron Rivera would prefer you stop talking about that so much. In his postgame press conference, Rivera indicated the 9-0 record was the “elephant in the room” (h/t David Newton), and the team is still taking each game one at a time.
“We’ve got to be in our game. We can’t just show up,” he continued (h/t Joe Mazur of ABC 11).
While this is a very valid point—you don’t start a game with an advantage just because you’re undefeated—it’s getting harder and harder to not look at the big picture.
In the Super Bowl era, only 19 teams had gone 9-0 before this season. All of them made the playoffs, 11 made the Super Bowl and seven won it all.
That’s both evidence that there’s a lot more work to be done—the last “final undefeated team” to win the Super Bowl were the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, per Pro-Football-Reference.com—and evidence that it’s fair to start thinking about potential playoff matchups, as a tumble from this spot would be historically unprecedented.
As a side note, the last time Rivera referred to something as being the “elephant in the room,” it was just before the 2013 season, when his future as head coach was in question after starting with a 13-19 record. Since then, the Panthers are 28-12-1 with back-to-back playoff berths and a third coming this season, and Rivera is in the thick of the conversation for coach of the year.
Cam Newton: Keep Me Out of the End Zone
6 of 7
Cam Newton scored a rushing touchdown late in the game against Tennessee—his 30th game with both a rushing and passing touchdown. Titans players took exception to his celebration, which included several dance moves. In fact, when Avery Williamson seemed to take exception to Newton dancing, he responded by proceeding with an even more elaborate dance.
His response, per Joe Person? It was firm and to the point: “I’m a firm believer if you don’t like it, keep me out [of the end zone],” he said in his postgame press conference.
That’s been easier said than done to this point in the season. Newton has scored a rushing touchdown in six of the Panthers’ nine games this season, and the last team to keep him out of the end zone on both the ground and in the air were the Seattle Seahawks in October 2014.
As long as Newton keeps scoring—and, equally as importantly, as long as the Panthers keep winning—no one in Carolina is going to take too much of an exception to Newton’s dancing moves.
Greg Olsen: Titans Didn’t Plan for Me
7 of 7
Once again, Greg Olsen was the Panthers’ leading receiver on Sunday, and he was so open early in the game, that he wondered aloud to Newton if he Titans had remembered about him in their pregame study.
According to Jonathan Jones, Olsen teased Cam Newton early in the game, saying, “I don’t think they put me in the game plan!”
According to Jeff Siner of the Charlotte Observer, Newton replied, saying “I don’t care, I’m going to keep giving you the ball.”
Newton targeted Olsen eight times, and he caught all eight passes for 80 yards. He was kept out of the end zone, but still remained one of the best receiving tight ends in the game.
Only Rob Gronkowski and Gary Barnidge had more receiving yards entering the week among tight ends, and only Gronkowski has a higher PFF pass rating. Olsen made his first Pro Bowl last season, and he could very well get a return trip this year.
Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers. Follow him @BryKno on Twitter.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
.png?w=480)
