Fyi, your method of extrapolating performance across 500 snaps is a well used statistical technique I employ quite often. As a pro at using stat techniques I can validate it. So…DL should be fine and its our year to avoid the injury bug!

Now add in the intangibles of two guys who have serious motivation to bust out this year. I like to believe (and I’ve heard it said) that when FA’s come to Carolina they are impressed with the professionalism and confidence the organization embodies. Tyler and Leonard know they have great players all around them, in particular the LB core. They probably didn’t always feel that way with their prior clubs. I think that will be big for our DL.

Unrelated question (sorry)…

Who is the likely starting TE for Carolina this year?

It’s tough to project their numbers, as the dynamic of their snaps will change, from being a backup to a starter. But very interesting, James.

The one thing that I keep coming back to is Foxy. He has never allowed a defense to be worse than 16th overall in any of his 8 seasons here. That is really the only tell that alleviates any concern, for me.

The guy I’m most excited about is not even practicing with the DL (as far as I know), and that’s Eric Norwood. He is a beast. The guy, for those of you who haven’t seen him play, is just a football player. He is always around the ball. The guy has the ability (had the ability at the college level) to take over games. He was the leader of a defense that ranked in the top 15 nationally for 3 of the 4 years he was there—which is a feat considering the play 8 games against tough SEC opponents. I’m genuinely excited to see the guy put on a Panthers uniform.

…but I found this article interesting anyway, because obviously we’re all concerned about what many might perceive as “the gamble” Fox and Hurney are taking with the D-line this year. How much of a gamble will it actually be? You never know. That’s why they play the games. And, with that in mind, here are a few additional points and counterpoints to some of the conclusions James has drawn. Nothing critical, mind you. Just an attempt to continue fostering discussion by widening the variables a bit.

1) Comparing Run Defense at the DE position - Something jumped out at me here. I noticed that you’re comparing Everette Brown paired with Charles Johnson against last year’s starters. And yet, everything I’ve heard (or imagined) has indicated we’ll probably pair Tyler Brayton with Charles Johnson as our DEs. If you re-do the math based on that, then it appears our projected tackles for that pairing would remain about as good as you’ve indicated with Everette Brown in the mix, our missed tackles would go down significantly by removing Brown as a starting DE on the run defense, but our stops would also drop back down to a comparable level to last year. Bottom line, the gap closes a bit more in the run defense situation at DE.

2) Stats of a Starter vs. Stats of a Roleplayer - The “per 500 snaps” statistical data is a bit flawed for me in this particular situation, because we’re not comparing starters to starters. In the case of Charles Johnson and Everette Brown, we’re really talking about roleplayers who primarily came in on 3rd down passing situations. As such, their run-stopping numbers might be inflated…i.e., if a team chose to run on 3rd-and-long or 3rd-and-medium, our speedy DEs might have had an easier time shutting that down and reaping the benefits of it, statistically-speaking. Likewise, the number of passes defensed might be way up for Johnson and Brown because more of their snaps came against passing situations. Lastly, neither of these guys had to play an entire game in a starting role. So, they were typically well-rested when they came in. And they were typically keying on one thing (i.e., pass-rushing) in specific situations. Thus, I think the comparison is way too inequitable to rely on the “per 500 snaps” rule-of-thumb that normally gets applied. Basically, the snaps aren’t equal because of the situation involved.

3) Stats vs. Differing Levels of Competition - I’m also left wondering as I examine this statistical data, how much of these numbers might be skewed by who these players faced when they compiled them. For instance, in the case of Hollis Thomas, against whom did he manage his 54 tackles in run-defense? Which teams? Which powerhouse or anemic running offenses? Did any of the numbers get inflated or deflated because of the level of competition? Just like we all know Peppers’ sack numbers often got inflated playing against a lot of bad teams when games were out of reach, I’m not certain how much stock we can put in the “high numbers” or “low numbers” we see for some of these guys. The same thing could be questioned about the fill-in, spot-duty that Everette Brown and Charles Johnson may have occasionally seen late in games that were no longer in contention (if that ever happened…as I don’t know the game-by-game or situational breakdown from which these numbers are taken).

4) Last Year’s Stats vs. an Upcoming Year’s Stats - If these numbers relied on the 2009 season, which everyone admitted was one of the hardest schedules played last year…and then, if we already know the Panthers will go from that situation to playing one of the easier schedules this year…that means a lot of the projected assumptions may just fly out the window anyway. Or, another way of looking at it would be that even if Everette Brown, Charles Johnson, Tank Tyler, and Louis Leonard come out looking better than expected because of some of the reasons cited above…maybe they can still live up to those numbers (even if they do turn out to be flawed in some way), because of the easier schedule and the types of teams we’ll face.

5) The Effects of a Team’s Offensive Performance on the Defense - I think it’s also fair to point out and examine how a defensive unit’s performance can sometimes be affected by how well or how poorly their own offense plays. Why? Because if your offense is scoring at ease and puts an opposing team way behind, it sets up the defense to pin back their ears and take more chances getting after the opposing QB who’s forced to become more pass-happy to try and lead a come-from-behind victory. Likewise, if your own offense is constantly going three-and-out or turning the ball over and allowing your own team to fall behind, it’s going to put a lot more pressure on the defense and they’re going to underperform for at least some portion of the snaps in which they’re involved. They won’t be able to get off the field for very long and prepare for the next series. The coaches won’t be able to make adjustments with their defensive players based on what they’re seeing from the sidelines. And so on. The bottom line is that last year…particularly during the early part of the season…the Panthers’ offense played really lousy. We had an incredible number of turnovers (mostly due to Jake Delhomme, but even the usually reliable Deangelo Williams coughed it up a few times). Some could say the performance of our special teams contributed similar problems for the defense to inherit. That put tremendous pressure on an under-performing (at the time) defense. Now, the latter part of the 2009 season saw a dramatic turnaround. Matt Moore controlled himself, as usual, and didn’t give the ball away. The defense really found its rhythm and bought into Meek’s scheme (i.e., many have suggested he adjusted from a Cover-2 to a Cover-1 and it helped us improve). So, a lot of these things are fluid. And they’re going to have an impact on the numbers from last year. Thus, trying to make projections based on the defensive performance of 2009 is far more of a guessing game than I feel comfortable with.

6) The Effects of Injuries on the Defense - This, too, is another category that may wind up skewing the numbers from 2009. And I’m not just talking about the injury to Kemo and how long we went without a true DT to clog up the middle and support the run-defense. Eventually, we got Hollis Thomas in there and he performed well enough for us. But Louis Leonard went down to injury before him in trying to fill that role. We lost a star-player in Thomas Davis, which impacted some things. We lost Chris Harris to injury at one point, too, which is why we saw Sherrod Martin on the field impacting a game with his interceptions (which certainly could have helped take pressure off the D-line). Next season’s injuries (or the absence of them) could also have an impact on the individual numbers of our D-linemen. To me, it’s all entertwined enough that I find it very hard to trust the stats for specific players from one year to another. Some of it’s a wash, I think. But some of the differences from year-to-year in the things I’ve mentioned above are legitimate and they do play a role in determining performance, not just at individual positions, but also across the board and as a collective whole.

But, as usual, that’s just my two-cents,
—Neil

I personally like the way you approached the topic. We all know what “they” say about statistics – there’s lies, damn lies, and then there’s statistics! Even so, it’s very interesting to see how the numbers panned out.

Another point I’d like to add, and that’s chemistry of the guys. I think it’s worth considering that football is the ultimate team game, and how the guys gel and interact means a lot.

For me, I like the changes and the infusion of youth and energy. It can’t be anything but a good thing for Meeks and his system. As the saying goes, we’ll see in TC.