Carolina Panthers left tackle Ikem Ekwonu has taken some steps back this season—literally and figuratively.
Sunday’s triumphant outing against the Houston Texans came in spite of an underwhelming performance by the team’s offensive line, which allowed six sacks and 10 hits of quarterback Bryce Young. Ekwonu was the weakest link of the unit, as defensive end Jonathan Greenard pushed the 320-pound hog molly back en route to a dominant performance off the edge.
Head coach Frank Reich spoke a bit about the outing on Monday.
“Certainly the protection can be better,” Reich said. “But I thought a couple of the sacks—the protection was good and they were coverage sacks. Probably two or three of those I would put it more in the category of coverage sacks—that we gotta do a better job of givin’ patterns as coaches, givin’ a better pattern where guys are gettin’ open, and then receivers need to do their job to get open.”
Reich was then asked to elaborate specifically on Ekwonu’s Week 8 performance, which was just the latest bump in what’s been a rough sophomore campaign for the 22-year-old.
“Hey, Ickey’s a great player,” he replied. “He had one or two struggles in the past game. But same thing, he’s like every other player on the team. There was a couple bad plays and then there were a lot of good plays. We’re confident in Ickey and the player that he is. So, we’ll learn from it and get better.”
Ekwonu, per Pro Football Focus, allowed a team-high five pressures of Young—two of which registered as sacks. The 2022 sixth overall pick has now been charged with five sacks through seven games, just one fewer than he relinquished all of last year.
