When it comes to the Carolina Panthers offense this week, it's the good, the bad and the ugly. The ugly? The Carolina Panthers passing offense is vomit inducing. Seriously, it's even worse than I thought. Cam Newton has been awful, the offensive line has been awful, the receivers aren't getting open and Kelvin Benjamin's been sloppy. Greg Olsen is the lone bright spot in a horrible, horrible passing game.
The bad? The Panthers running game can't support itself without Cam Newton. Jonathan Stewart has been flashing and is far and away the most consistent back right now. DeAngelo Williams hasn't looked the same since a thigh injury and is now nursing a foot injury.
Now, onto the lone bright spot: the Atlanta Falcons terrible defense. The beauty of two terrible units playing each other is one of the units has to prove itself better than the other, or one of the units has to prove itself to be worse, depending on how you're viewing the glass. This game is an opportunity to instill a small amount of faith in the Panthers offense before they inevitably let us down again.
Panther's Passing Offense
To paint an accurate picture of the current passing attack, let's look at the stats over the past 4 games:
Now keep in mind, while I don't like to do the subtraction game, two of those touchdowns came in garbage time last week against Philadelphia. It's no secret that Cam Newton hasn't been good lately. In fact, he's been awful. Boasting a sweet 1:2 touchdown to interception ratio, he's also only completing 52.9 percent of his passes. Now, in the interest of fairness, let's consider his offensive line.
Cam Newton has been sacked 19 times. NINETEEN. That's diecinueve in Spanish. Dix-nuef in French and horrifically awful in any language. Outside of Greg Olsen, it looks like Cam Newton doesn't trust anyone on his offense and I can't blame him. The lack of talent on this offensive, particularly the offensive line, is criminal. Moves could have been made, but they weren't. Because of that we're seeing the franchise quarterback battered, tattered and bruised mentally and physically. And if you don't think Cam Newton should be the starting quarterback for the Panthers, well, just look around the league at some of the other guys who are starting. Right now Cam Newton is deservedly frustrated.
The lone bright spot is the Falcon's 32nd ranked pass defense. They've been largely unable to generate much of a pass rush and Osi Umenyiora is their leading pass rusher with 2.5 sacks. Thanks to Byron Bell and Chris Scott, he may wind up looking like 2007 Pro Bowler Osi. Outside of that, the Panthers should be able to at least contain the pass rush and hopefully not have to rely on Greg Olsen as often to help in protection.
Panther's Rushing Offense
Despite adding bulk in free agents Tyson Jackson and Paul Soliai, the Falcons haven't done much to successfully help the run defense. The Falcons are currently ranked 24th in rushing yards, so that helps, right? Well, it would, provided the Panthers weren't ranked 27th in rushing.
Currently, Jonathan Stewart is averaging 3.9 yards per carry and DeAngelo Williams is averaging 3.4. However, the past two games, DeAngelo has been averaging 2.4 yards per carry. Considering the fact he's also nursing a foot injury, the best course of action would be a heavy dose of Jonathan Stewart and Fozzy Whittaker.
The two backs have been running hard lately (Fozzy on special teams) despite the offensive line being an utter mess. At the end of the day, don't look for much out of the Panther's rushing attack. Trusting this offensive line to run block is like trusting your pet iguana to do your quantum physics homework.
X-Factor: Greg Olsen
Originally, I was tempted to go with the offensive line, considering they are the most influential piece in this disaster of a season. However, that would require expecting them to play well, and we like to be realistic here at CSR. So we're going with Greg Olsen.
Recently, he's been asked to stay in and help pass block more often than usual, resulting in a drop in numbers. The Falcon's poor pass rush should allow him to go out for more routes, and if they design the offensive game plan around him, this offense might finally find some rhythm, considering he's the most complete tight end in the NFL right now.