Captain Fear
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- Mar 20, 2019
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Many will be criticized for Thursday night’s poor offensive showing in Carolina by the Panthers, who have started the season by losing two home games only four days apart. One person who should not escape criticism is a person whose name was never mentioned once (at least not in a negative way) during Thursday night’s broadcast: Offensive coordinator Norv Turner.
Whether it was deliberate or organic under the circumstances, Turner got away from using one of the most potent weapons in the game, dialing up pass after pass by quarterback Cam Newton to receivers and tight ends instead of getting the ball in the hands of running back Christian McCaffrey.
The Panthers threw 50 passes on the right, and they ran the ball with McCaffrey only 16 times, abandoning the ground game for long stretches of the game while seemingly sliding into last-drive desperation mode way too early in the game, even though Newton’s accuracy bordered at times on Tebowesque.
Of course, once desperation mode finally arrived, the Panthers were able to move the ball. And when the Panthers faced fourth and very short at the doorstep of a potential game-winning touchdown, they gave it not to Cam Newton but to Christian McCaffrey. And not in a traditional play design but through a variation of the Philly Special.
Newton played the role of Nick Foles from Super Bowl LII, but Newton was a little too obvious in his movement to his position behind the right tackle and the center was a little too slow in snapping the ball to McCaffrey. Maybe the goal was to dupe the Bucs into thinking the Philly Special was coming, because once McCaffrey got the snap and ran to his left, he didn’t give the ball to the receiver who was running left to right.
The Buccaneers ultimately weren’t fooled, keeping McCaffrey from getting either to the pylon or to the first down. (Running the play to the short side of the field didn’t help.)
In his post-game press conference, Newton was almost too careful to avoid criticizing the play-calling, going well out of his way to shoulder all of the blame for the subpar offensive showing.
“I don’t know,” Newton said when asked by reporters why the Panthers on two failed fourth-and-short opportunities didn’t run the ball with their oversized Superman of a quarterback. “I can’t answer that question.”
Newton nevertheless endorsed the decision to snap the ball directly to McCaffrey with the game on the line.
“I felt extremely confident in the play,” Newton said. “I’ve always felt confident in the plays as called. Norv gives us a great chance to put us in winning position. It’s just up to us as players to execute.”
Still, Newton would have preferred the chance to execute the last play.
“Of course,” Newton said later in the post-game press conference when asked whether he wanted the ball in his hands in that situation. “Of course. But like I say you’re not about to have me sit up here and have me point and say what I would have called differently. Me personally, I accept full responsibility in making sure that offensively I do my part and uphold my part of the bargain.”
He didn’t, in part because Norv didn’t. And that adds up to an early-season disaster for a team that, after starting 6-2 a year ago has now lost nine of 10 games.