Panthers—Falcons: Rivalry Intensifies With First Place On The Line

The Panthers and Falcons renew their intense rivalry Sunday afternoon at 1:00 in Bank of America Stadium.  

Panthers—Falcons games are always intense.  They've been rivals for as long as both teams have been in existence.  But this time first place is on the line. 

The Falcons enter the game 2-1, having beaten the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions at home but lost badly to the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay.

The Panthers come in 2-1 after taking it to the Chargers and Bears but losing to the Vikings last week.

A large part of the Falcons' success has been the performance of running back Michael Turner. 

Turner leads the NFL in rushing yards with 366, an average of 122 per game.

He is also tied for the league lead in rushing touchdowns with Dolphins back Ronnie Brown, at five.

But he accomplished almost all of this against the two worst run defenses in the NFL, the Chiefs and the Lions.

He only ran for 42 yards on 14 carries against the Bucs, though.  He didn't score a touchdown, either.

You could also make an argument for field general Matt Ryan.  But his story is similar to Turner's—good against crappy teams and dreadful against good ones.

The Panthers' success insofar hasn't centered on one player or unit.  

Against the Chargers the running game on both sides of the ball and the late-game heroics of quarterback Jake Delhomme carried them to a narrow win.

The team collectively stayed in the game until the second half of the Bears game. Then the running game clicked and staged a comeback for the victory.

Then the entire team crumbled in the middle of last week's game against the Vikings. The result was a 20-10 Minnesota win.

This one looks like it should be a fairly easy victory for the Panthers.

Their run defense contained LT, and they haven't given up 100 yards to any one player yet this year.  Plus, as I said earlier, Turner hasn't been able to run on better defensive teams.  

Which the Panthers are, despite what the stats say.

Carolina's pass defense hasn't been spectacular this year, and I actually expect Ryan to light up the Panthers pass D for one reason.

All an opposing offense has to do to get the passing game going against the Panthers is throw short passes over the top of the linebackers yet under the secondary.  

No matter how many short passes an opposing offense completes, Panthers defensivecoordinator Mike Trgovac keeps the secondary in deep coverage to prevent getting burned on a deep pass.

Minnesota quarterback Gus Frerotte executed this game plan to perfection last week, going 16-of-28 for 204 yards and a touchdown as well as an interception. 

However, the Falcons don't have enough threats to win the game this way.

Or maybe the Panthers, dealing with a rookie quarterback and sub-par receivers, will come out and stop the Atlanta passing game cold.  But don't count on it.

On the other hand, even if the Panthers do give up a lot of points to a less-than-amazing Falcons attack, they won't have any trouble outscoring Atlanta.

The Falcons are averaging 309 yards allowed per game, good enough for 15th in the league.

The main reason that they're not in the gutter defensively, however, is that they're 10thin pass defense at 170 yards allowed per game.  But that's because of the fact that all of the teams they've played either have a scrub quarterback, awful receivers—or both.

Meanwhile, their rush defense is flat out terrible.  It's surrendering 139 yards per game.  This is the biggest area of concern Atlanta needs to rectify if they're going to win this game.

The Panthers love to run the ball, and they have two great backs that are great complements to each other.  In addition, if one is struggling against a particular defense, the other can fill in and likely be successful.

As if that wasn't enough, the Panthers are getting starting left guard Travelle Wharton back this week.

Wharton injured his knee in the first half of the season-opener.  He came back to finish the game, but he hasn't played since.

In his absence the Panthers rushing attack hasn't been nearly as dynamic.  When he was playing in the Chargers game, the running offense was totally in sync.  It ran all over the Chargers.  In the second half it was good but not great.  

Against the Bears, the first game Wharton missed entirely, DeAngelo Williams was ineffective and Jonathan Stewart more or less won the game for Carolina.  

Then the running game hit the Minnesota Vikings' brick wall last Sunday.  Wharton didn't play for the second consecutive week.

All in all, the Panthers should win this game.  Even if the Falcons score 30 points (which shouldn't happen), the Panthers should score 50 (okay, that was a stretch, too).  And first place will be theirs.