Welp. Hopes were relatively high for the Carolina Panthers offense after a strong finish to the 2024 season. All the momentum they built up came to a crashing halt with a disastrous performance against a Jaguars team that was the second worst defense in the NFL last season. Seemingly every player made individual errors in sequence so the offense could never find any sort of rhythm. Young looked unsure and rushed at different points, and receivers were dropping passes, running bad routes, and catching
well thrown balls out of bounds. It was a comedy of errors and has Panthers fans back in the dumps once again.
The bright side: it was only Week 1. Week 1 is hardly a reliable predictor for how the season will go. We see weird stuff happen in the first couple weeks of the season that make less and less sense as the season goes on. It’s entirely possible that Young and the Panthers find their groove in the coming weeks and we look back on that Jacksonville performance wondering how that happened. Let’s hope.
This weekend brings a visit to the Arizona Cardinals, who for some reason have been a good get right spot for the Panthers in recent years. Last season, the Panthers defeated the Cardinals 36-30 in overtime behind 152 yards and two touchdowns from Chuba Hubbard. The Cardinals weren’t exactly inspiring against a Saints team that most expect to be the worst in the NFL.
The Panthers offense failed their first test of the season. Let’s look at how they can avoid doing that two weeks in a row.
- Get Chubba Hubbard going. Hubbard was the catalyst for the win in last year’s version of this meeting. He averaged over six yards per carry, and his hard run through two Cardinals tacklers won the game in overtime. The Panthers weren’t able to get much going on the ground last week, and that didn’t help with Young and the passing offense’s struggles. The Cardinals didn’t allow any explosive runs in their Week 1 win over the Saints, but they did allow Alvin Kamara and company to consistently pick up small chunks. That’s Chuba’s style, and the Panthers are going to need him to help out the passing game by keeping the offense ahead of the sticks.
- Pass catchers not named Tetairoa McMillan, please do your job. McMillan wasn’t perfect in his debut, but he was a reliable target for Young and caught the balls he needed to catch. The same can’t be said for all of the Panthers pass catchers. Hunter Renfrow and Xavier Legette caught five of their 13 targets. That’s not all on them, but they’ve got to make plays beyond the gimmes. Renfrow wasn’t able to haul in a couple of catchable balls with contact, and Legette had that inexplicable mistake where he didn’t get two feet inbounds on a perfectly thrown ball that left him plenty of room to do that. Tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders also had a notable drop. Young needs to be sharper, but he also needs his pass catchers to help him out and make some plays so Young doesn’t have to be perfect.
- Keep an eye on the tight ends. The Saints found some success heavily targeting tight end Juwan Johnson. He was targeted 11 times and led the team with eight catches for 76 yards. Johnson isn’t exactly a superstar tight end, so if he can have that kind of success against this linebacking corps, Ja’Tavion Sanders and Tommy Tremble should be able to find some room to operate as well
