Quick Hits: Reich Dives Into Falcons Loss, Confidence in CB Depth, Receivers + More

Carolina Panthers head coach Frank Reich met with the media to talk the loss to Atlanta.

Defense vs. Falcons

"I thought we played well. I thought we were very efficient on first down. Won a lot of the first downs, put them in a lot of third and long situations. So hence the 2/10 on third downs. Thought the effort was good all day. First game of the season, tackling, I'm sure 32 teams are saying tackling needs to improve. One of the other weak spots, the red zone defense. We can be more efficient there. And then obviously, we got the ball out a couple times, but we didn't come up with any." 

Offense vs. Falcons

"Positives were, ran the ball well. Thought the o-line played well, thought they protected well. We had some pressure later in the game when we got in that pass mode they ran a couple stunts. But I thought for the most part the protection was good. I thought we were subpar in the pass game in general as far as chunk plays. We need more explosive plays. We had that 4th & 1 that we get stopped on the first drive that really ends up being like a turnover. We had three turnovers. Really, it turns out to be four turnovers which is a negative but in some ways that's a positive. We're in that game. We're leading that game in the third quarter with those turnovers, so that's a double-edged sword. We've got to eliminate those turnovers."

Receivers

"Confident in our guys. We just have to execute a little bit better in all areas. Have to put them in better position and I'm confident we will."

Concern about the run defense

"I feel good about the percentage of wins we had on first down. They have a dynamic run game. When you play some teams, they just got certain things that they're going to make their plays. You play the Atlanta Falcons, they're going to have some explosive runs. Looking at our game summary, we count explosive runs as anything over ten yards. We had five of those on offense and they had five on offense. Certainly want to limit that. I'm not overly concerned about the run defense. I give a lot of credit to Atlanta and how good they are."

On what DJ Chark returning would mean for the offense

"He's a playmaker. We were having a lot of success with him in training camp and getting the ball down the field with him, a good connection between him and Bryce. So it adds one more playmaker to the mix."

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