Phil Snow Talks Week 1 Struggles, Pass Rush, Flag on Burns, Saquon Barkley + More

Carolina Panthers defensive coordinator Phil Snow previews the Giants game.

Thoughts on Saquon Barkley

"I had to defend him twice in college. He's really a good player. When I was at Temple, we recruited him. His girlfriend actually played lacrosse or something at Temple, so he would come around a lot. He's a great guy and really a good player. He's really explosive, has really good size, he can catch the football. It was sad to see him get hurt a year ago, but it looks like he's back to being healthy."

The 18 missed tackles in Week 1

"I think everybody looked at the tape and said, we were in a lot of good positions but we didn't tackle very well in the game. We just got to get back to basics which we have this week and reset. We have our hands full with Barkley. Barkley, the thing that's scary about him is he can make 60 and 70-yard plays. You've really got to be detailed and demanding about what we do."

If lack of reps for starters in preseason correlates to Week 1 performance

"Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that happened. We played 81 snaps and we recorded 74 because of penalty. It was hot. And I think there was other factors, right? But those are really excuses to me. We've got to play at one standard and we'll get back to that this week."

The flag on Brian Burns vs CLE for roughing the passer

"I've never said anything negative about officials. The game is really hard for everybody. And to officiate those big athletes playing against each other, how fast they move and so, he called it and you just live with the penalty. It's just part of the game. We could have executed better after that and won the game. I'm not into well the official lost the game and all that. We haven't even talked about that to be honest with you. I never said one word to the defense about that penalty. We just don't operate that way. We control our destiny, not the officials."

3rd down struggles

"Yeah, that really hurt us in the game. We knew going in you can't give these guys extra possessions. The ones that hurt us were the 3rd and 7, 3rd and 9, and 3rd and 10. The longer yardages we can't give up."

Pass rush

"Not as good as it needs to be. A lot of it has to do with them too. They max protected a lot against us. They weren't going to let our ends do anything. We got a lot of that last year, we just got to be better at it. We need more pressure on the quarterback than we had last week."

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