Campen Explains What Happened vs. Jets, What Needs to Happen vs. Giants

A recap of what went wrong in the Panthers' preseason opener from o-line coach James Campen.

Pass protection was a major problem in the Carolina Panthers preseason opener against the New York Jets last Saturday. 

They allowed five sacks and eight QB hits in the game. Now, some of those were on backup QB Matt Corral for holding onto the ball too long or on the receivers for not finding ways to get open. Regardless, the level of play from the o-line was nowhere near the standard offensive line coach James Campen has set for the unit. 

Shortly after the game, Campen got the entire offensive line together for a "meeting" where voiced his displeasure with some colorful analysis which he says will stay in that room. On Tuesday, Campen explained why he called the meeting when he did.

"I just think at times when things don't go so well as a group, getting together and making sure that things don't overlap into the next day. There's a lot of things, that's why that call it training camp. It's preseason games. But you don't take any opportunity to compete [for granted]. You want to win. I think a lot of times, they have a lot of rest and recovery and coaching and the medical staff, they do such a tremendous job...when things go bad, it's like alright well, are you going to miss your rehab? Are you going to miss your recovery time? Because we're all upset. So a lot of times, it's things like that. Make sure we get on track and when we come in the morning we're all focused on what we need to do to get better."

So, what exactly went wrong in the game? 

"Fundamentals," Campen said. "I mean, we were assignment sure. There wasn't any hesitation and making the right declarations and those things, so those are positives somewhere in the negatives. But it was fundamental football. Pad level to hand placement to those types of things. Fundamentals creeped up on us."

Head coach Frank Reich said in his postgame press conference that they ran a very vanilla offense and that it was intended for the unit to just play fast and not have to think. But when you hear that as a player, you may try to pull back the reins a little bit and that can lead to a lack of focus and technique. That sounds reasonable in theory, but only the guys who played in the game can give an explanation as to why it happened.

So, what is it that Campen wants to see in Friday's game against the Giants? Well, it's pretty simple.

"Improvement. Doing the things that they know they can do and doing them well. And being fundamentally sound. We're going up against a different front. The d-coordinator over there gives you a lot of different things to look at, so that'll be a new challenge for some of them. But just being fundamentally sound and being aggressive and fly around and really have fun. Sometimes you over coach things. I sat there and I told the guys, hey look, I probably sat there and harped on holding calls and let's not do any of that stuff. And sometimes that can become a negative. It's like, turn me loose. Take the handcuffs off. Let me go play."

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