Panthers vs Saints Week 10 Reaction | Postgame Show | Carolina Panthers

Panthers vs Saints Week 10 Reaction | Postgame Show | Carolina Panthers

Hey everybody, welcome to the Panthers postgame show. Kristen Balon alongside Panthers legends Thomas Davis and Jonathan Stewart. And guys, we are talking about the 17-7 loss to the Saints. So what I want to know, and Stu, I’ll start with you, is how does the team that goes into Green Bay and has this big upset win last week lose this game? Lack of preparation. Um I don’t think they understood what was totally at stake here. Um, you know, all week long, you know, we’re finally in this place where we are expecting the Carolina Panthers to come back to home in Bank of America Stadium against the New Orleans Saints, a very crucial game. Um, it’s a division opponent and we’re expecting them to to win this game. And so, it’s it’s different to be playing with the expectations that you’re not a good team um because you have something to prove. It’s a different type of energy. But now when you’ve on when you’re on the other side of that now you’re having to prove that you are a good team. So you have to execute at a level that is consistent have to execute at a level that rises above the team’s uh performance. So it’s it’s just a different type of you know ball game when you are expected to come out here and win these games. You you can’t get bit by the complacency bug and that’s what I saw yesterday and watching these guys play. you they you show up and you think that you can beat a team based on how you’ve played other teams in the past and how they’ve played other teams in the past. But one of the things you have to realize is this was a Saints team regardless of what their record said, they played hard. They play hard in particular on defense, they have played hard all season long. And when you have a young football team like we have, they have to understand and and realize that this is not like a college situation where you have certain teams on your schedule where you can show up and you’re going to win the game. This is a this is the NFL where you have a bunch of grown men that are out here trying to feed their families and they’re going to do it however they can on Sundays and you got to make sure that you’re prepared to match whatever energy. Honestly, you shouldn’t be prepared to match. you should force them to have to match your energy every single time that you take the field. And we don’t see that consistenc consistently enough from this group of players. And that’s something that, you know, it comes with time. It comes with veteran leadership. It comes with guys understanding and and realizing the magnitude of the situation that we’re in, especially, we talked about it. When you’re playing a divisional opponent, doesn’t matter. The records are out the windows when you’re playing the divisional opponent. these guys want to come in and we’re going to compete hard and we’re going to try to do our best to knock you off and we know and we understand that that’s the mindset when you’re playing in the NFC South every game. TD, you talked about this defense. There’s a lot of talent on that side of the ball and they came to play. You know, looking at what they did to the Carolina offense, just 73 rush yards, which was the second fewest on the season for the Panthers. 124 passing yards, the third fewest. We’re gonna get to that passing game because I feel like that’s the the bigger topic. But TD, I want to ask you first, how did this team stop the run because we know that is the strength of this Panthers offense. We know that is what they want to do and they were not able to get it going. You know, they they just out physical us when when it comes down to it. When you watch the game, you turn on the tape. They won the battle in the trenches, the battle of physicality. And we talked about Demario Davis going into that game. He was the he was the nucleus of that attack. He was the guy that was constantly playing downhill that it seemed like he was shadowing Rico everywhere that he went. He was getting to that ball and guys on the defensive side of that of that ball for the Saints, they were flying around. They then they made a commitment to load the box up and and really force our hand. And KB, you know, we talk about that all the time. You want to force a team to be onedimensional, but as a offense, once you get forced to become one-dimensional when a team loads the box, you have to have a plan in place that allows you to have success throwing the football. And we just we didn’t do that consistently enough. Stu, how frustrating is that for a running back? We know how good Rico Delta is. He finds ways, he finds, he creates his own holes, then he runs through contact, and he was just not able to do that. It’s very frustrating, right? you know, especially for his case, he’s been running rampant for the last, you know, several games and your expectations going into a game is to hit the ground running and do it as you have been doing it. Um, the difference here, you know, I think this to T’s point, they loaded the box and when you load the box, it’s like basically going into a house that has a bunch of rooms, a bunch of doors, a bunch of walls. You want that open floor plan when you go when you’re going as a running back. You want to be able to run freely. You want to be able to hit the scenes when it hit the second level without having to shake guys off of you, off of your shoulders and all those types of things. Um, you know, the Saints tackled really well. Um, they played with angles. They didn’t they weren’t playing, you know, sideline to sideline. They were playing angles, meaning they saw Rico go left. They were attacking him downhill but on an angle going left and getting underneath blocks and and and being in position to make certain tackles. Well, let it be known that Jonathan Stewart is in favor of open floor plans. All right, everybody. All right. And TD, as you said, so once that running game is taken away, then the Panthers have to come up with something in the passing game. They were not able to do that in this game. Here is what head coach Dave Canales had to say about that after the game. You know, I just I look at it and I got to do a better job. I gotta do a better job of making sure that we have answers and compliments to our run game. They did a fantastic job taking care of that part of it and uh we hit a couple of passes but not enough. Um I got to make sure that we get put our heads together and game plan so that we have answers uh for when team make it difficult to run the ball. Dave, why does this this passing game struggle to create consistent vertical plays? Yeah, that’s something we’re working on. You know, it’s uh it’s just taking advantage of those opportunities one-on-one down the field and you know, it comes down to just me to you factor and making those plays. Um, at the same time, from a game plan standpoint, I got to make sure we’re putting our guys in the right spots, taking advantage of matchups. What are the limitations in the passing game that you think are holding this offense back right now? I think it’s just timing and rhythm, but also it’s the choices, um, the type of passes. You know, that’s something that starts with me and I got to make sure I look at that and make sure we’re putting our guys in the right situations with the matchup and leverages that we’re working with uh, to give them access so that Bryce feels confident to throw to the guys in different spots. All right, TD, we just heard Dave Canales say that, you know, he thought the limitations were timing, choices, making the right decisions. What did you see from that passing game? You know, all of those things, you know, what he just talked about, you know, we never could develop any kind of real rhythm. And passing game, we know that it’s all about rhythm. We know that it’s all about timing. And when that’s off, I think the Saints did a great job of keeping us off schedule. We wasn’t able to get on schedule. And uh I don’t think Bryce ever really got comfortable with with his reads and and the Saints showed us a bunch of different looks. And we we just got to do a much better job, man, of of getting the ball into our playmakaker hands a lot earlier and allowing them to to utilize their playmaking ability once they have the ball in their hands. And I don’t think that that was something that we did consistently enough and it showed up with us only having 124 passing yards against a defense that just hasn’t performed well um from a standpoint in of the passing game. You know they’ve done a really good job in the run game and you know with Kool-Aid McKinstry you know not really being a huge factor into in this game which he has been for them all season is surprising to see the numbers be so low. KB. Mhm. TD just said h getting the hands getting the ball into the hands of the playmakers a lot earlier. Stu, what does that do for an offense? When you get the ball into your playmakaker’s hands, it gets things going, right? It’s like turning on a core. Hey, let’s just start it first, right? And sometimes that comes in the form of running the ball, right? Rico Dattle. That’s the quickest way to get the ball in a playmaker’s hands. But when you recognize that a defense showed up to basically challenge you and say you have to beat us through the air, we are putting everybody here at the line of scrimmage here to stop the run. You got to take that as a disrespect. If I’m an offensive coordinator, if I’m a quarterback, if I’m a receiver, oh, you this is an opportunity for us to show, hey, yeah, we can get the ball in our h the ball player in the uh our ball players hands quicker, but what really needs to happen is we need to dictate this game. If we are sitting back being passive in the passing game, what do you expect is going to happen? You have to be just as aggressive as you are in the run game as you are in the passing game. If you want to get a certain look, you have to create that formationally. Like the spatial recogn the the like create the special recognition for your quarterback so that way he can see things quicker, see things with a clear expectation of where he’s going with the ball. And then for for Bryce, you have to be you have you have to be consistent. You have to be on target with your throws. So that way your receivers are building the expectation and chemistry of what they’re, you know, where they’re supposed to be, where their landmarks are um on certain looks. You know what I’m saying? So it’s a lot of there’s a lot that goes into the the passing game because it is finicky. Everything has to go as expected. That’s the that’s also comes with the pro pass pro, right? You have to be able to protect him and keep him upright and make him feel confident in the pocket. So, there’s just a lot there that I think we have been passive in um for the last several weeks because the ground game has been so good. I think we’ve kind of ignored it um ignored, you know, the little details that they talk about throughout the week. That does show up on game day. TD, we just heard Stu talking about putting Bryce in those right situations, scheming up for that. Um making sure that things spatially are in the right spot, but is there anything else that you see? You know, we talked before this show started. Could we get into some tempo? Like what do you see? What would you do differently? Listen, honestly, KB, I’ve seen Bryce Young perform extremely well when we’ve gotten into tempo situations. And I know that we’ve been down and you know, people will say that, you know, the the defenses have been softer in certain situations, but in in two-minute situations, defense don’t really play in a prevent style defense. in particular when the game is on the line or if this game is close enough like we see in the Miami Dolphins game or a game where he’s put together a game-winning drive. I think that those are opportunities like yeah like the Green Bay game like those are opportunities to really see what a quarterback is capable of in those kind of situations. And if he proves to me in those environments that he can handle the offense, he can take control of the situation which allows like Stu just talked about allows your offense to be aggressive in the passing game that puts so much pressure on the defense because we’re not getting we can’t get comfortable. We have to be on our heels and we have to react to what the offense is doing to us. So I think that’s one of the things that I have seen Bryce Young play extremely well in. So, as a coach, I would try to incorporate that more. See if there’s something that would get him jump started like like with a running back when you get the ball to him early in the game and then now he has that confident and he having a he’s having a great game because he’s been fed the ball early. Well, with the quarterback, if you get him going early, you have some consistency with, you know, keep sustaining drives by making the defense play on their heels, I think that’s something that would definitely benefit Bryce. and he has proven time and time again in those situations that he can handle that. I think it would be something that’ll be a great jump start for him. We also um heard from Dave Canales. He got asked about the the vertical passing game. He said that’s something that we’re working on. TD, do you want to see more deep shots down the field? Absolutely. I think we have the playmakers in order to to really get that done. In years past, I wouldn’t say that that was something that this offense was definitely capable of, but you know, when you add a guy in like T-Mac, when you have XL healthy and on the field, those are guys that I identify can that can be our down the field shot guys. Jimmy Horn Jr. been another guy that can come in and stretch the field for us. So, we have to be able to It first starts with the offensive line protecting well. Like if you don’t get that done, it doesn’t matter how many shots you call like when when the offensive line is not playing well. And hats off to those guys. They have performed well in in a lot of really tough situations in particular with guys going in and out of the lineup. But I don’t feel like yesterday was the day that we really could get that done. And I think too often yesterday in watching the game, we were getting locked in on T-Mac in particular. I didn’t see the enough passes going to XL and and other guys getting dispersed the ball. And I think that was one of the issues that ended up being being one of our problems because the Saints started to lock in. You look at the interception to Taylor, he ran right under the out route as if like he knew that that was coming. So, I just think that’s one of the things that we have to do a much better job of offensively and not making it so vanilla. Stu, when you talk about spreading the ball around, like you said, you you want to get Bryson to those situations where he’s comfortable. We know they practice that. So, what is the disconnect, do you think? Um, I mean, it it’s all about the flow of the game. Um, you have to be able to recognize opportunities where, you know, in certain matchups are to your favor. Um, and I think what we we just haven’t necessarily had the mindset uh of being the aggressor in the passing game. and and and when it comes to, you know, Bryce making certain decisions, you know, pre-nap reads, I’m not really sure, you know, what’s being talked about, what’s being coached as far as what he’s supposed to be looking for in finite detail, but I know the decisions that he’s that he had made in that game, you know, he said it in his press conference, you know, that’s on me, right? I have to make better decisions. And when you you have a quarterback, you know, that is struggling in that department, there is a trust thing there. in in all honesty. And so you’re putting the coach in a bind and in the sense of what he’s feeling comfortable in calling. And so when you showcase that you’re not making the right reads and whatnot, you’re as a as a as a team, you have to make sure you’re protecting the ball. And sometimes it’s a it’s a paralysis by analysis, right? And I think that might be a little bit of a disconnect. All right, let’s talk about this defense. They only gave up 17 points to the Saints. They did give up a couple of big plays, two plays of 50 or more yards. TD, how do you evaluate their performance yesterday? Listen, I think overall defensively, minus, you know, two plays, the defense performed extremely well. We played we we performed well enough for us to win the football games in most areas of the game. But the one area that that really bothered me yesterday was third down. you know, we got them into some third down situations and third and long situations and we did not take advantage of those in getting them off the field. If we would have been able to get them off the field in more of those third down situations, I feel like that would have been something that would have regardless of how the offense played, that would have made a difference in the outcome of this football game because that would have created extra possessions for him. That would have gave us the time of possession battle in our favor. I think the field position battle we did a great job of forcing the Saints to start with some terrible field position. Like a lot of times they started from within in their own 10 yard line. So I thought that when they started on the two yard line there was there was a couple of times where they were they were we had them pinned deep exactly where you want to have a team start and we just didn’t take advantage of it once we got the ball back offensively being in in scoring position. So, I just think that’s one of the things that we really have to hone in and really figure out what our identity is going to be and make that be our strength instead of, you know, the inconsistencies that we’ve seen from it. And Stu, uh, you know, a couple of those those big plays came on JC Horn, but you’re saying, you know, before we started rolling, like I’m not worried about JC Horn making those plays, right? That’s not him. Yeah. I mean, we expect, you know, the world out of him, right? because he’s that good of a corner and you know to have that game that he had. Everyone has a game. Uh we expect him to not have that game again and right but uh those are two plays. Um I look I look at the explosive plays from yesterday and and two of them accounted for 114 yards. You take those two plays away and they’re the Saints that we expected them to be, right? And so defensively, yeah, you take those those plays away and it’s a different ball game and and maybe we as an offense start calling different things in a different pattern, right? Um the expectations as far as moving the ball down the field, being patient on offense, those things come into account when you’re not playing from a 173 deficit. Um but again, I think the defense did enough yesterday in my opinion for us to win that game. you know, the two big plays in all, if we did enough on offense to put ourselves in scoring position, whether it was I mean, if we just got some field goals, right, um this is a different this is a different ball game. We wouldn’t be talking about these two plays uh by JC Horn. Yeah. But if you look at this play like with as aggressive as JC is and the the way he plays the game physically, I feel like that that was just a a play where he just expected a call from the ref and it didn’t happen for him. And then on this particular play right here, you know, it’s just bad eyes. Bad eyes. Guys looking in the back field expecting the ball to come out at a certain point. and the quarterback did a great job of creating some extra time and JC had his eyes locked in and the the tight end made a move when he wasn’t expecting it and then you saw the end result. But it’s just it comes down to guys playing the game and not guessing, right? I like what you said though, you know, he was expecting something to happen and and and to be honest, watching the game as a whole, I think everyone was expecting someone to show up and do something. Yeah. Right. Rather than just making it happen. Like you can’t wait on someone. You can’t wait on the ref, right? You can’t wait on your offensive coordinator. You can’t wait on your defensive coordinator. You have to go out there and execute. Whatever is being done, you got to act, you got to execute to the maximum ability. And to that point with uh JC Horn on Chris Ave, you have to go out there and make the play. You have your eyes on his on his hip. You’re way downfield. He’s not running and he’s not running anything else but straightforward to that goal line, right? So you need to body him. You need to do certain things to adjust to make the play because we’ve seen him do it, right? So you put it on film, we have we now build these expectations of you to do it over and over and over again so that way you become elite. But as we said, you know, just giving up 17 points in this game, generally a really good performance by this defense once again, just 13 last week to the Packers. And if you really want to look for a bright spot, I think it was Nick Scorton. You know, four tackles in this game, including one for loss, a sack, four pressures. And TD, I got to talk with him a couple of weeks ago, and the thing I love that he said, he said, “I’m not the biggest I’m not the biggest guy. I’m not an athletic freak. The way that I can show up and impress these guys that I love playing with and that I look up to is to know my playbook and do my job. Yes, you you can tell this kid, he loves the game and you know, every time you have an opportunity to talk to him, you know, he’s always asking questions and whenever you find a player that’s doing that, it just really shows how much they value knowledge and how much they value getting better and and how much they realize that there’s so much more that you can that you can learn that you can get better at. And you love to see that in a rookie. And just look at the effort. Look at the amount of energy and effort that he puts in, play in and play out. And you you look at it when you seen him play in college and you like, okay, he played on a Texas A&M defense to finish his years out, but his year out, but he the production wasn’t really there and you start to question, you start to wonder. But then you see a kid come out and he play with this kind of energy and effort and you know without a doubt that you made the right decision in selecting him. But then you go back even further Steu and then you look at the guy that played next to him um Stewart that got drafted to Cincinnati and he looks like he doesn’t belong in the NFL at all right now. And I just think I think that really goes to show, you know, how much Nick has really put into the his game since he’s gotten to the NFL and how much he’s really learned from the guys that are around him and how much this matters to him. Yeah, being in this ro I think there’s something to be said about, you know, the defensive side of the ball. You have Derek Brown, you have Aan Robinson, you have these veterans that, you know, love the game. You know, we talk about Dan Morgan. What was the first thing that he wanted out of his players? a guy that loves football. And when you love football, you have a curiosity about you. And and to that point, Nick Gordon, he’s curious. And when you’re curious and you actually do something with it, that means you have humility. And so that’s those are the the perfect, you know, person like personality traits uh for a great athlete. Um we’re watching one in the making where every week he’s he’s doing something to be have a positive impact on this game. So, shout out to you for for being a bright spot. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let’s take a look at the next four games. Of course, with the loss to the Saints, the Panthers dropped to one and one in the division. You know, something that we need to say, though, still five and five right now, uh 10 games in. Here are the next four games. Another division game here. Another opportunity for the Panthers going down to Atlanta. Atlanta 3 and six. And then you’ve got you got San Francisco on Monday Night Football. You got the Rams. And then you go back uh to this game against New Orleans this time away in New Orleans. TD, what do you see when you look at this schedule? Uh I look at a a a tough schedule. I look at a schedule regardless of what these records indicate. Now, you’re going to play against Atlanta Falcons team that’s their record says that they’re three and six. It’s a divisional opponent. And we talked about those games and how they make a difference and how difference though how different those games get played. But if you look at the Atlanta Falcons, they played the Buffalo Bills two weeks ago. They beat them. A team that we saw what happened when they came in and played against us. Then they played the Indianapolis Colts this past weekend. We know how well the Colts have been playing this year. Atlanta had that game won and it went into overtime and the Colts were able to come away with that win. But I think that really speaks to, you know, the magnitude of of how you can never take any week in this league for granted. You have to take advantage and win the games that you are supposed to win. that that’s that’s the reality of it. And to me, this was a game this past weekend that we were absolutely supposed to win. We were the better team. We had the better record. But Coach Rivera has always said to us as players, the team that plays the best on Sunday is the team that’s going to win the game. And that would always remain true. It doesn’t matter who your personnel is. It doesn’t matter how well you call plays. If you don’t execute and if you don’t do the things right for four quarters, you can be beaten on any Sunday in this league. And you know that’s the the proof is in the pudding when it comes to that. So we have to understand and know the Atlanta Falcons record is what it is. We got to show up. San Francisco record is what it is. We got to show up. And the Rams have been playing extremely well. We got to show up. And then when you get to that Saints game, you better get some you better have your your hair better be on fire going into that dome because they’re gonna be rocking and we better take that energy and we better make them match our energy going down there or this season could potentially get away from us regardless of how well they’ve played and being at 500 right now. It could all slip out of your hands if you don’t get a get a hold on things right now. Yeah, I think the level of, you know, the level of you just have to you have to rally yourself, right? Because no one’s coming to save you. No one’s coming to save you. And that goes for every position, every person on staff. Right now is the time for you to make a move for the rest of this season. Um, you know, the Atlanta Falcons that you beat them 30 to zero. That don’t matter no more. That’s that’s long and gone. You know what it does matter. It matters because they know it happened. Well, they know it happened and they know that you’re coming into their house and they’re going to they’re going to have revenge on their mind. But more importantly, you have to go in there with a with a a clear pallet, okay? Like, and understand that you whatever you’ve done before, you it doesn’t carry besides the fact that it pisses them off, right? And so you have to go into Atlanta knowing that you’re going to get their best shot and you have to have a better shot. And then when you play the San Franc San Francisco 49ers at their place, guess who’s there? Christian McCaffrey. Guess who used to play for the Panthers? Christian McCaffrey. Guess who was going to have a vendetta? Christian McCaffrey. Right? So like you’re going to you so what I’m saying is you’re going to have to rally yourself. You’re going to have to find a reason why you’re showing up every single game because sometimes it’s going to it’s going to it is hard. It’s a long season. It’s like, man, how am I supposed to get myself up to play at this level every single time? I don’t know. That’s up to you. You got to go talk to the guy in the mirror, right? Look at yourself in the mirror, watch tape, be honest, and see how you can come out and get better every single time you play football. Because that’s what it’s all about. How good can I get? That’s why you play this game. Yeah. All right, let’s take a look now at the NFC South standings. And guys, you know, the Panthers still in a very good position. And TD, like you said, at five and five, now is the time to rally yourselves like you’re both talking about because there’s a lot of opportunities ahead. A ton of opportunities ahead. And just look at that, man. Look at what a win could have done for this team yesterday. Had we won that game, we would have been sitting exactly where we wanted to be in prime position to be able to take a a firm firm step forward and trying to win this division. But nonetheless, we’re still sitting right here and we control our own destiny. And that’s one of the things that you love after 10 games into a season. You love being in a position where you control your own destiny and you’re not at the mercy of somebody else having to lose or win games in order for you to have an opportunity to to make it into the playoffs. Yeah, absolutely. Great opportunity next week with the Falcons as Stu said. All right, we always end the show by getting your Monday night picks, but I believe we have a little update on how the season is going for you guys so far. And I know that you are both competitive. you want to win, but unfortunately you guys are losing out to uh to our away crew right there. Yeah. Not too good. Look at Al 600. Yeah, he’s doing really good, huh? All right, but look, that can all turn around right here with tonight’s pick. We got the Eagles at the Packers. That is a very good game. Certainly one that we’re excited to watch. So T, let me start with you. Where are you going in this one? To me, the Philadelphia Eagles is the better team in this game, but we always we know that it’s not always about the better team. We It really comes down to the team that has the most to lose in a situation. And I feel like it’s the Eagles in this, and I’m going with the Eagles, too, because listen, when you watch this Eagles team, I just feel like they were struggling with their passing game. You know, that was a big talk. That was a big component that everybody talked about with them. And I think that they found some balance offensively. Defensively, they performed pretty well all season long. But offensively, they’ve struggled to find balance in their passing game. In these last two weeks, they figured something out with their passing game. They got their receivers happy. And I think they’re going to come away with this victory. Did they just come off a by-week? I think they’re going to be sleep. Oh, so I’m taking the Packers. Packers just came off of losing to the Carolina Panthers and I think they want to make sure they uh set the record straight. Okay. Right. And it’s a home game. So they can’t lose two home games in a row. They can though. They can. And they will. But they I don’t think they will. Jordan Love ain’t going to let that happen. And they will. Josh Jacobs going to have about a buck 30. Nope. Two tugs. Jordan Jordan Love gonna have about two 220 through the air. Nope. It’s the other Jordan that’s gonna stop all that. Jordan Davis. Shout out to the Charlotte kid. I love I always love the back and forth on this. Guys, thank you so much uh for joining me on the Panthers postgame show as we do every week and I feel like we talked through a lot of this. I know I learned something. Hopefully the fans did as well. We appreciate all of you watching. We’ll be back with you next Monday on the Panthers Postgame Show. [Music]

Kristen Balboni is joined by Thomas Davis and Jonathan Stewart to breakdown the Carolina Panthers disappointing loss to the New Orleans Saints in Week 10. Find out what they want to see different from Bryce Young and the passing attack moving forward.

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