The Carolina Panthers raised some eyebrows with last week’s trade of Christian McCaffrey—a swap that sent the All-Pro running back to the San Francisco 49ers for a package of draft picks. That move, in turn, fueled beliefs of an impending fire sale and tank.
(After all, you usually don’t sell off your best offensive playmaker if you feel like you are competitive.)
But that narrative has now been flipped on its head after a routing of the reigning, defending NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And they did it, shockingly enough, behind an offense that looked the best it has all year.
Many are left pondering as to how this addition by subtraction could lead to such an outcome. But perhaps we are all overthinking it—maybe like the Panthers themselves were overthinking the utilization of their former star rusher.
Instead of trying to make splash plays and expand creativity, maybe they only had to keep it simple. Maybe they only had to maintain one of the most crucial ideals of Panthers football—”Keep Pounding.”
Now that the Panthers have shifted their mindset and personnel, including a move at center with Bradley Bozeman, they’ve found success in the tried and true ground-and-pound approach. Slamming D’Onta Foreman and Chuba Hubbard behind a much improved offensive front 24 times was quite an effective attack, even against one of the league’s most formidable run defenses.
The dominant rushing output, one that resulted in 173 yards and a score, also gave way to the delightfully surprising performance from quarterback PJ Walker. Walker was able to take advantage of lenient coverages, bootlegs and the play-action passing game en route to a controlled and efficient showing.
We can only hope this ground-dominant, bully-type offense will continue to be a part of the Panthers’ identity—because it really does look good on them.
