Panthers/New England Monday Night

Wow, what a week last week...

It's been a ride all season, knowing that the Panthers were, in fact, a better team than 1. they were being given credit for and 2. their record indicated.  The metrics reflected this (Football Outsiders had them in the top 5 in terms of their DVOA rankings for most of the season), but it was incrediby obvious that the talking heads on TV (and equally clueless fans for opposing teams) had never actually seen the Panthers play and were going off of a preconceived notion that the Panthers are, were, and would forever be bad.

Well, I suppose that's changed.

I was on my way back from a visit to Blacksburg, VA, when the Panthers/9ers game kicked off.  I followed religiously on my phone, refreshing every two seconds, excited that we were holding up on defense after giving up a rough first drive.  I got home sometime in the middle of the third quarter and turned on NFL Redzone, since they never show Panthers games in Northern Virginia.  I was excited yet nervous, as these close games always had a way of breaking my heart.

I literally ran up the stairs shouting when the Panthers intercepted that last Kaepernick pass, fully aware that respect was now going to be given.

Well, now I worry that since we're getting all this positive attention, the naysaying will be even stronger if we falter.

And, unfortunately, the football fan (not Panther fan) side of me believes that it is highly likely we lose this game.  Here's why:

The Panthers have an outstanding defense.  We really do; we can completely nullify most rushing attacks and force teams to be one-dimensional, which allows our stellar line to tee off on the quarterback.  With the pressure up the middle from our DTs, quarterbacks can't step up and get comfortable, meaning that most of the time it's either going to be a sack or a dumpoff/checkdown.  We are awesome at preventing those plays from gaining a ton of yards after catch, a testament to Ron Rivera's playcalling to mask the deficiencies in our inexperienced secondary.

However, this is where the issue comes in: the Patriots' Tom Brady has literally built a first-ballot Hall of Fame career off of taking advantage of the short-to-intermediate passing game.  Sure, he had Randy Moss for a couple of years to show that he could throw deep when he wanted to, but he's been passing underneath and in the flats for over a decade now.  Since he's used to doing this, and so damn good at it, he puts his receivers in a position to gain yards after the catch, putting the ball in the optimal location for this to occur.

Here's the other thing: our pass defense relies rather heavily on the ability to get to the passer.  If we can't pressure the opposing quarterback, it gives opposing wideouts/tight ends time to take advantage of our inexperienced secondary.  Tom Brady is a rhythm and timing passer; its "3 steps, ball out"; that's why he struggled a bit when all of his receivers went down.  He didn't have the timing down with the new receivers, who weren't in the exact spot they were supposed to be there.

Well, now he has Rob Gronkowski back.  And Danny Amendola.  He has rapport with those guys.

That's not good for us, since our strongest trait in pass defense (consistently getting pressure with four linemen) is nullified solely by Brady playing his game.  We give up somewhere in the area of a 68% pass completion percentage, something that Tom Brady will gobble up and spit us out with.

However, there are positives.  We do have Luke Kuechly, and we can stick him on Gronk in the same way we stuck him on Tony Gonzalez in the second half of the Atlanta game; while I'm not naive enough to believe this will completely nullify one of the premier players in the NFL, I do believe that we are in a better position than most teams in this regard.  We can shut down the Pats rushing attack, meaning if we can stuff the receivers at the line, we might be able to hit Tom Brady a couple of times, taking him out of his game somewhat.  We're not terrible in our secondary, but anything less than excellent is subpar compared to the likes of Brady, Manning, and Brees.

On the other side of the ball, the Pats are sorely missing both Vince Wilfork and Jerod Mayo.  The Pats had to send a 5th round pick at the trade deadline for Isaac Sopoaga for help in the middle.  This translates to a softer middle against the team ranked 10th in rushing offense.  While we're also having issues along our offensive line (the fact that we're still starting a DT at OG still concerns the hell out of me, regardless of how much coaches talk him up; I saw him get beat more times than I liked against SF), we're very likely going to rely on a game plan of "keep the ball out of Brady's hands" by continuously jamming our three starting-caliber running backs into the gut of that line.  Eventually, the middle of the Pat's defense will wear out, as long as we don't fall behind too quickly to Brady's bunch on offense.

Unfortunately, I think this is the game where our streak ends, but I also don't think this means we're not a great team in the NFL; I just think that this is a matchup nightmare for our defense and I don't know if our offense can wear their defense down fast enough to prevent Brady from scoring over 20 points against us.  Unless we can get some takeaways, I see this one ending up around:

24-17 Patriots.

(It pains me to type that...)