There are now three things that I am certain of in this world: death, taxes, and the Carolina Panthers using the Atlanta Falcons for a ‘get right’ game. I don’t know why, but quite frankly I don’t care to overthink it. Whether it’s Sunday’s 34-3 blowout or 2025’s franchise record breaking performance from Bryce Young, nothing heals the Panthers wounds like a trip to Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
With that said, what if I told you that there’s an argument to be made that the team’s performance
between Week 1’s barn burner versus the Chicago Bears and this most recent blowout of the Falcons weren’t all that different? I imagine the general reaction would range from a dismissive scoff to some choice not-safe-for-work words. Fair enough, because that’s an insane assertion for me to make and wrong on many levels.
I’m going to do it anyway, though.
Welcome to this week’s game review where I try to tell you how the Panthers performance against the Falcons was not actually that much better than the game that preceded using some definitely-not-cherry-picked stats. Let’s get into it.
So, the Panthers offense in Week 2 were called for more penalties, slightly less efficient on 3rd down, significantly less efficient in the red zone, allowed more pressure on the quarterback and were overall efficient as an offense according to their EPA per play. Let me be clear, I am not saying the Panthers offense performed poorly. Far from it, as averaging an 0.14 EPA/Play for a season would have been good for the best offense in the NFL in 2025. As far as week-to-week comparisons go, though, the Offense was better against the Bears.
Listen, we’re talking about a difference of 56 points scored here so the numbers were going to be significantly improved against Atlanta. Just hear me out as I am going somewhere with this. If you take out the outlier 61 yard rush by Kyle Monangai, the Bears and Falcons had the exact same number of runs against the Panthers (27). While the Bears running backs ran for an insane 6 yards per carry, the Falcons’ backs ran for a still strong 4.5 yards per carry. This suggests that while improved, the overall rushing defense was still below average against the Falcons.
However, the difference of performance between the two quarterbacks the Panthers have faced is where the crux of my argument lays. The Bears receivers had an above average amount of yards of separation. Generally, the more separation your receivers have, the more likely a quarterback is to complete a pass, and vice versa. The more likely a quarterback is to complete a pass, the higher their expected completion percentage will be. The inverse of this is also true – less receiver separation, the less likely a quarterback is to complete pass.
Consider now that Caleb Williams was managing to complete 11.4% more of his attempts than expected while the Falcons gruesome twosome at quarterback completed 14.5 overall less of their attempts. This is not even accounting for the fact that Williams’ average intended air yards was literally 8 yards farther than Jack Strand. In other words, Williams made the hard plays look easy and the Falcons quarterbacks made the easy plays look hard – hard enough to sink their entire offense with poorly placed footballs and 5 turnovers.
This is, of course, a fairly simplified view that does lack a some nuance. Those of you who are optimists (as I like to think I am) may believe that it takes a talented improvisor like Williams who can run 20 mph and turn off-script plays into big gains to dismantle the defense. The pessimist amongst you will wonder what may have happened if the Falcons had deployed even average quarterback play.
The question I ask is did the Panthers play that much better this week, or did the Falcons just play that much worse than the Bears did in Week 1? I’d love to hear where you stand in the comments below.
That’s all I have for you this week! So far the Panthers have faced against elite quarterback play and then the best efforts of Cooper Rush and Jack Strand. Who is to say what they get against the Cleveland Browns next week, though. Until then, keep pounding.
