Jaycee Horn on how Panthers can improve league-worst defense

Matt Alquiza | Oct 15, 2024

Bob Donnan-Imagn Images

In this story:

Carolina Panthers

The Carolina Panthers defense is on pace to be the worst unit in the history of football. The 33.8 points per game that the once proud Carolina defense surrenders is more than four points greater than the second-worst Jacksonville Jaguars, and there's no sign that it will get better any time soon. The losses of Derrick Brown, Shaq Thompson, Josey Jewell, and Dane Jackson (who may return to play this week) have been too much for Ejiro Evero, the Panthers highly regarded defensive coordinator, to overcome.

Frustrations are bubbling.

After Sunday's game, a notably despondent Jaycee Horn spoke to media members in the Panthers locker room. Horn, the shut-down corner fighting for a long-term contract, took the onus off of his much maligned coordinator and pegged the blame squarely on him and his teammates. He was asked if a scheme change would help fix the Carolina defense, and he quickly shut that noise down.

Jaycee Horn on the defense's struggles

For anyone questioning the scheme - Horn says it’s not a scheme problem. He believes that him and his teammates need to play better. pic.twitter.com/pRqu1Upj0s
— Matt Alquiza (@malquiza8) October 14, 2024

"It ain't about the scheme it's about the players. Players make plays. So, our defensive players gotta be better, myself included."

A simple message from Horn, but one that should fire up his defensive compatriots. In my opinion, the Panthers defensive struggles are not the fault of Ejiro Evero. He is months removed from being crowned as one of the league's top defensive minds - a shoo in for a head coaching job in the near future. His schematic advantages didn't just disappear in nine months time. He's been dealt an impossible hand to play.

The Panthers defense is bereft of talent, full stop. There are bright spots like Horn, rookie linebacker Trevin Wallace, Mike Jackson, and Charles Harris, but as a whole, they lack enough juice to compete from week to week. The return of some standouts from their injury woes will help patch some of the holes in Carolina's leaky defense, but to what extent? Horn is 100% right in his diagnosis of the team's defensive shortcomings. Nobody is riding into the building on a white horse to save the defense; the players that Carolina employs must play better in order to stop the bleeding that has been uncontrollable through six weeks.