Hello CSR! We’re onto week 3 of the 2025 NFL season, and the Panthers first home game of the season. They’ll be taking on the 1-1 Atlanta Falcons, who are coming off a strong win over the Minnesota Vikings where they combined for 218 total yards rushing. Sound familiar? That’s because the Panthers surrendered 200 rushing yards on a semi regular basis in 2024, and opened the 2025 season doing the same. Last week was a much better week for the Panthers defense, however an offense that shot themselves
in the foot twice to start the game and several times after that did them no favors, as the Panthers fell to 0-2. Let’s go through some keys to this game for the defense to continue on an upward trajectory, and hopefully help the Panthers to their first win.
- Continue the positive run defense. The Panthers managed to hold the Cardinals to a total of 82 yards for 3.7 yards per carry on Sunday, with the longest run coming on a scramble by QB Kyler Murray for 30 yards. Overall, a pretty successful day for most defenses, but a very successful one for a Panthers defense that habitually got abused in the run game last season and even in 2o23. However, the Falcons are much more devoted to running the football and involving their running backs in general. Stud running back Bijan Robinson ran roughshod over the Vikings last week with 143 yards on 22 attempts. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers managed to keep Bijan and Tyler Allgeier under wraps during week one, but Bijan still caught the ball 6 times for 100 yards in that contest. The engine of this offense is going to be Bijan Robinson and Allgeier, as the duo has carried the ball 58 times collectively over the last two games. Carolina’s rush defense has improved since last year, but this game could quickly get out of hands if they can’t limit the rushing attack early on. The inside linebackers in particular could be in for a very bad day if they continue to play as bad as they have so far.
- Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson will have to rise to the challenge again. One of the lost stories of the 2025 season so far is Jaycee Horn and Mike Jackson have overall played extremely well as the perimeter corners. Sure, Mike Jack had an unfortunate pass interference penalty last week (that I maintain would not have happened if Kyler doesn’t severely under throw the football to his receiver), but overall the two have been about as good as we could have expected given the other weaknesses surrounding them. Jaycee Horn in particular seems to be grading out as one of the best in the league this year. He’ll see Drake London and Kyle Pitts on Sunday, and London in particular has been a thorn in the Panthers side whenever he’s healthy.
- Ramp up the pass pressure. The Panthers pass rush still is finding its footing in 2025. Last week, rookie Princely Umanmielen got his first sack of the year, and the team as a whole managed 4 QB hits, which was progress compared to the whole 0 sacks and 1 QB hit they got in week 1 against the Jaguars. They’ll be facing Michael Penis Jr this week, who has only started a handful of games compared to Trevor Lawrence and Kyler Murray. Penix has started the season somewhat inconsistently, with a decent pass performance in a losing effort in week 1, and a game manager role in week 2 when the rushing attack ran over the Vikings. The last time Penix and Bryce Young met, it turned into a major shootout. With the Panthers current woes on offense, a shootout is not an ideal scenario. Continuing to play the rookie pass rushers and rotate should help if the game turns more pass heavy than I would expect.
What are you watching for from the defense, Panthers fans?
