Carolina Panthers: Offense showed full power vs. Ravens
The Carolina Panthers offense did what no other team had done all season to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday and that performance builds excitement around this unit.
The Carolina Panthers offense exploded on Sunday as they routed the Baltimore Ravens and their league-leading defense, winning 36-21. Everything was clicking for the Cats in a way that it hasn’t since the team went 15-1 and reached the Super Bowl.
As chronicled in recent pieces, the Panthers offense needed to badly get out of its state of stagnation and Sunday’s game is an example of what happens when everything comes together. Diversity was key in Sunday’s game and if the Panthers can get more of it, expect the excitement to continue.
Looking at the box score on Sunday’s game, there’s a lot to see on both sides of the ball. While the defense played very well, they didn’t fully limit the Ravens offense — but they did snatch away three turnovers, one of three games this season where that’s occurred. But this breakdown will focus on the offense, as that unit excelled in nearly every aspect of their game plan.
In the running game, four men touched the ball in rushing plays and each earned at least 20 yards or more. Even though none of them reached triple digits, the diversity in attack created multiple looks that the Ravens were not ready to deal with. Up until this game, the Ravens were allowing less than 95 yards per outing on the ground and looked like a force that could limit even the Panthers who have a historically strong rushing game.
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At the end of the day, 33 attempts for 154 yards and two touchdowns vastly exceeded the expectations for this unit on the ground against a defensive unit that found success against every other team to this point.
But the true story lies in Carolina’s passing performance. Cam Newton completed 21 of 29 passes for 219 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions. That is the epitome of efficiency which is a focus of Norv Turner and this new look offense.
Newton completed 72.4 percent of his passes which is the ninth best performance of the 116 games he’s played since entering the league in 2011. Newton continues to experience positive development under Turner and this game went a long way in proving that fact.
Seven different receivers caught passes in this game, but D.J. Moore stood out the most. Many were questioning the rookie after his initial struggles to find playing time. But that all came to ahead on Sunday where he caught five passes for 90 yards. This is along with the 39 yards he had in run plays.
Second year player Curtis Samuel also had his best performance of 2018 to date and Greg Olsen looked to be in vintage form with four catches for 56 yards and a touchdown. The Panthers earned 14 first downs by passing the ball and averaged 10.5 yards per reception. It’s very difficult for a defense to stop a team that’s performing like that and the Ravens fell under that pressure.
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The Carolina Panthers are a team that has questions as to whether they can make a run to the playoffs. This team has never reached back-to-back seasons with records better than .500 but there’s excitement that this may be the season. If this team continues to perform like the did on Sunday, then the NFC South and the conference just became that much more interesting.