Panthers Who Need to Man-Up Fan Poll

You’re supposed to be a tackling machine, Dan. Make some damn tackles! And do it at first contact, not after an 8 yd gain.

f yards came running to the outside, not inside. So fua has to be doing something right, just wish he was bigger and mire consistent in technique.

If we stop the run, we force them to throw. And this is John Beck, he who has started fewer games than Cam Newton, and was #2 on the depth chart behind Rex Grossman.

If this becomes a shootout, we will win.

between Naanee and, believe it or not, Cam Newton. Naanee is a bit obvious, he just screws us at the most inopportune moments and obviously the coaching staff for whatever reason is gonna keep going to him and keep Lafell sidelined. “Legs” performed a little better last week, but that’s one game out of six so he’s batting .166 on decent games, which is no good.

The reason I say Newton is because, as great as he’s been, he hasn’t capitalized on his opportunities to win games. He’s getting the ball in his hands with a chance to make game-winning drives and just not getting it done. Take last week for example: even before the screen pick we had a chance to drive the field and take a 2 TD lead that would have likely put the game out of reach, but we punted instead. The week before we had a chance to make a drive to take the lead, but instead gave the ball back to Brees with a few minutes left in the game, which is usually a losing situation. Btw, don’t even get me started on that 3rd and 2 call…wtf. Also, Cam needs to stop going to LN if LN can’t make the necessary plays. It’s kind of escaping me now, it was either Rodgers or Brees, but I think it was Brees where he threw a ball to Moore I think and Moore dropped it. Brees gave him this look like “I could kill you” and just practically ignored him for the rest of the game. Cam needs to hold these guys accountable and go to who is reliable; Naanee has proven to be unreliable and often doesn’t even seem like he cares.

It would obviously be nice if Fua played better, but what can you really expect from a rookie DT who we got at the very bottom of the third round. As far as punt/kick returns go, I think we are doing alright when we do return it, but it’s hard when you’ve got multiple guys coming at you unblocked as AE/Pilhares often do so it seems like it’s the rest of the special teams unit that needs to step up.

On a side note: I’d add Chudz to this list. He makes some pretty bone-headed play calls. The fact that we ran the exact same play on 3rd and 2 last week as we did the week before, the play that gave Brees back the ball and lost us the game, makes me think he’s not learning from his mistakes. What’s the point of getting in 3rd and short situations if we aren’t moving the chains? Why would you risk giving the ball back to Brees with that much time left on the clock? Is that really the spot to be taking a stab down field? Move the chains and we can at least leave him with a minute less to work with. It’d be nice to be balanced. Seems like we’ve gone from one extreme to the other: ultra conservative → overly aggressive.

We have a tendency to let the other teams offense sustain drives in the 4th quarter. We need to get our defense off the field on third down, especially on third and long. That would consist of Sione clogging the middle and we need to get pressure on the QB. For example, in the Saints game, we had them 3rd and 10, when they first got the ball, and allowed them to move the chains.

It’s easy to critique the play calling after the fact, especially because we know it did not work. That being said, sometimes it is easy to out-smart yourselves. I do agree where we go from one extreme to another. We try to run it up the gut or hit the home run to Steve Smith on a fly route. If we could get some mid-range plays. I am happy to see us running screen plays, I don’t think a screen pass was even in the playbook last year.

Cam has played better than I thought he would thus far. We need him to keep on leading this team. We need him to instill confidence in the whole team. Game 1, everyone was feeding off of his energy and confidence. Brees is an idiot. Favre would always go right back to a receiver after a drop. This would not allow them to dwell on a dropped pass. Let’s face it, we need all of our receivers to be making plays, catching passes.

On defense, we lost Beason to IR. He was the leader of the D, we need someone to step up and fill that role. It doesn’t have to be a LB. Our defense needs to get fired up out there. They need to be looking for blood, have the other team want to get off the field.

This week, versus the Redskins. We need to use our strong suits. We have a small, fast defense. We need to attack. You can never attack too much in response to the earlier post. John Beck is untested, we need to stop the run early. Shanahan likes to run the ball. We need to make them one dimensional. Then we can tee-up and meet at the QB with endless blitzing. (See all of last year’s game film of how we got beat with Clausen for proper execution of strategy).

I’d have to say both of these units are the ones that need to man up. I can understand we’re a young team; I can understand we’re gonna make some bone-headed mistakes as a result. But for the love of God, they’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to the bone-headed mistakes.

Defense: Our run defense is atrocious, mostly because we can never get the containment we need outside (or inside, really, for that matter) from the front seven. Couple this with a rather suspect secondary at times (and by suspect, I’m looking at you tackle-missing safeties, Godfrey and Martin), and it’s little wonder we’re suffering so badly. Something has to give, and soon.

Special Teams: Of all the special teams, Armanti is about the only one I can give a pass to — you can’t do anything when the rest of your squad refuses to block (unless it’s from behind so that any return can be nullified).

As far as the offense goes, if there’s anyone there that needs to man up, it’s Naanee. I could care less how much “better” he knows the system and assignments — in that case, give him a headset on the sidelines. Naanee has cut short God knows how many drives because of his penchant for trying to be a full-body catcher’s mitt when he does make the occasional catch, and has been supremely underwhelming as a WR.

Cam shouldn’t even be on this list: he’s a rookie QB thrust into the spotlight right out of the gate. Yet he’s also been nothing short of electrifying ever since the start of the regular season — he’s done everything he can possibly do that’s been asked of him, and he’s looking like the second coming of Peyton Manning in the process. I daresay the main reason we’ve managed to stay so competitive and keep games so close (aside from this past week’s loss) has been because of Cam’s own drive and determination. If anything, I suspect we’ve come to expect too much out of Cam because of his rather un-rookie-like (if that’s even a word — if not, I just invented it) performance. Yes, he makes rookie mistakes, but that’s to be expected, and the video game numbers he’s posted so far has wow’ed and blinded everyone to the fact that he’s still a rookie when all is said and done.

If there’s anyone else I would pencil in (and this one might be unpopular, but let me explain before you lynch me) to man up… it’s Brandon Lafell. Now, don’t get me wrong: Lafell has been the definition of clutch (I looked it up recently to see the meaning of the word, and the first definition was see Brandon Lafell) when he’s had his opportunities. The reason I say he needs to man up, though, is in his knowledge of the system — the sooner he shows that knowledge as second nature, the sooner we can see him as a bona fide #2 — at least for the remainder of the season — and move Naanee off somewhere else, preferably where he doesn’t have to be a target on the field.

Fua hasn’t done any worse than I expected him to. He’s actually been decent against the run (a lot of the big rushes have been to the outside) but he has had zero presence in pass pressure.

Really I can’t understand how anyone has said Cam. He’s performed leaps and bounds above what anyone has expected. Has he failed in some key situations? Sure. But let’s be honest, he’s had way more pressure on him than he ever should have. Over time I expect him to step up, but I think it;s really unfair to peg him as the guy who needs to step up when he’s been so good for us already. Maybe if this was his second or third year, but I couldn’t ask for more out of ANY rookie – let alone one who was supposed to take 1-3 years to acclimate.

If forced to ask who needs to step up out of anyone, I would say McDermott. I’ve said it before, but I’m quite underwhelmed by him. I think his play designing is fantastic, but his timing for calling said plays has been very poor. If he could put his play-calling together a little better, I think we’d have a mid-ranked defense. And right now I’m convinced that a 12-15th ranked defense – combined with our offense – would put us at 3-3 at worst.