The preseason is upon us, and if you’re like me, it snuck up on you pretty quick. I guess that’s what happens when your team is playing in the Hall of Fame game and gets the honor of playing an early and extra preseason game that nobody wants.
The opponent in this game that no one wants to play in is the Arizona Cardinals, who have the lowest win total over/under you’ll ever see at 3.5 games. All that’s good for is making people freak out if the Panthers struggle in this game. You’ll see takes along
the lines of “it might be a long season for us if our backups are worse than the Cardinals backups” and things of that nature. I’m here to remind you that the result of this game means absolutely nothing knowing full well people are going to ignore this and try to read into it either way.
Anyway, there are some things we can pay attention to as we scratch our itch to watch football on our TVs. Whether or not the Carolina Panthers win or not isn’t worth analyzing, but there are some more micro-level things we can watch for.
Kenny Pickett’s viability as a backup quarterback
This is going to be more of an eye test thing than a stats thing. Given the context of the game and the players that are going to be on the field, Pickett might not have great protection or windows to throw through. More important will be how decisive and poised he looks operating the offense and how accurate he is when he gets a chance to deliver the football. Pickett has a lot of real NFL games under his belt, so he should be fine, but a strong performance can quiet some concerns Panthers fans have about him as the team’s backup.
Can the backup tackles block people?
The Panthers got dealt a rough bit of news with Taylor Moton missing time with a blood clot in his lung. That means both of last season’s starters are on the shelf for the foreseeable future, which pushes free agent signing Rasheed Walker and rookie first round pick Monroe Freeling to the starting spots. After them is anyone’s guess. The Panthers are walking a dangerous line at that position group right now. They need one of their inordinately tall depth guys to be better than expected to make the depth at that position look a little less scary.
The mechanics of Brad Idzik as a play caller
There isn’t going to be a whole lot in terms of scheme for the preseason, but we’ll get our first look at Brad Idzik calling plays. We’re not going to worry about play design, but it will be interesting to see some of his tendencies start to show in different situations. Like what does he call in 3rd and short, or how often does he run or pass the ball on first down. And perhaps most importantly for this setting, is he quick at getting the personnel groupings and play calls down to the field. It’s not the end of the world if it’s a little choppy given this is a new gig, but it’ll be interesting to see how the debut goes.
Jonathon Brooks?
We’ve hardly seen Brooks since the Panthers picked him in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft. He’s been a full go throughout training camp, and with the starters not getting the call for the Hall of Fame game, I’d expect Brooks to get at least a few looks. We’ll see how well he’s bounced back from multiple ACL tears, and the game reps will be paramount to get him back in a rhythm going into the regular season.
