Monday Morning Thoughts: Panthers Still Have a lot to Fix

Breaking down the Panthers' win over the Saints.

For the first time in over a year, the Carolina Panthers won a football game inside Bank of America Stadium. Oddly enough, the last two wins in the Bank have come against the New Orleans Saints.

Although the Panthers finally put an end to a nine-game losing skid that dates back to last season, there are still a lot of questions surrounding this team and the potential of it. 

Offensively is where many of the issues lie, so that's what we're going to focus on today. 

Aside from the 67-yard catch and run touchdown by Laviska Shenault, the Panthers could not get anything going in the passing game. It was a lot of check downs and dump-offs with very few shots down the field. Now, some of that is because of how good the Saints' secondary is but this was an issue in the two previous games as well. 

Baker Mayfield needs to be more consistent with his ball placement and footwork. He's missed a number of throws through the first three weeks of the season solely based on where he put the ball. One thing I've noticed is he's missing high with regularity. The overthrow to Shi Smith that led to an interception in Week 1 and the quick out to the sideline intended for DJ Moore in Week 2 that would have moved the chains on third down are some of the more notable ones.

DJ Moore is too good of a receiver to only have one reception for two yards on six targets. Robbie Anderson is too explosive to have just one reception for 14 yards on four targets. Christian McCaffrey is too dynamic to have just two receptions for seven yards on four targets. Sense where I'm going with this? The offense can't sustain drives and score if Mayfield doesn't improve and he knows it.

"Just ball location honestly on some of these man-to-man spots," Mayfield said of his struggles on Sunday. "I am going to look back at the tape and not be real happy with how I played. Obviously, considering that third-down conversions and our passing game. We will take wins when we can get them, there’s no doubt about that. Just need to capitalize on it. I don’t think it’s anything schematically. The physical errors are going to happen every once in a while, I just think today was just one of those days."

Third down also continues to be problematic for this team as they finished the day 4/14 on third down conversions. In the last two games, being unable to sustain drives led to the opposition dominating the time of possession. That wasn't the case this Sunday as the two were only 20 seconds off in difference with Carolina having the slight edge.

This isn't totally a Baker Mayfield problem, though. And it's not 100% a Ben McAdoo issue either. This is an area that has hindered the Panthers since Matt Rhule became the head coach in 2020. Carolina ranked 24th in third down conversion rate in 2020, 29th in 2021, and currently rank 30th after three games. 

This is a major reason why the Panthers are 1-25 under Matt Rhule when the opposing team scores over 17 points. If you can't win games because you give up 20 points or more, you're in big trouble. 

That's why even after a win over New Orleans, I'm not sold on the Panthers turning this thing around - at least not yet. To win this game, they needed the defense and special teams unit to play out of its mind and they did. Three turnovers, a missed field goal, and a blocked field goal yet the offense were only able to manage 22 points. That's concerning. 

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