Carolina Panthers vs. Atlanta Falcons Preview & Prediction | PFF

Carolina Panthers vs. Atlanta Falcons Preview & Prediction | PFF

The Panthers are traveling to Atlanta to take on the Falcons. Now, this is still a battle for second place in the NFC South. And with the Bucks kind of dropping a couple of games here, right, they’re not taking advantage of that. They’re not extending their lead too much there in the NFC South. So, these teams are still within striking distance, but they haven’t played well, especially as of late. You want to talk about the Falcons or you want to talk about the Panthers here? I I I think we have an issue. We are back to an issue now of Bryce Young being able to attack downfield. Now, the second half of last year, weeks 9 through 18, Bryce Young was the highest graded passer in the NFL on 10 plus yard throws, over a 93 passing grade. Right now, this season through the first what, nine games for Carolina? 10 games for Carolina actually. A 54 passing grade on 10 plus yard throws. 41% completion rate. only eight one only 8.1 yards per attempt which for these throws is very low and only a 32 and a half% accurate throw rate that’s bottom five in the NFL. This offense the ability that they had to throw the football downfield like they had the second half of last year that really sparked them. It’s just gone right now. And it’s a major issue because even for as well as they’re running the football, if you stack the box and you dare him to throw if you dare Bryce Young to throw it over your head, he’s just not getting the job done. They have to find a way to create vertical plays in the passing game or what’s going to happen is these entire defenses are just going to keep creeping up to stop Rico D and Chuba Hubard and maybe Bryce can throw it underneath a little bit. But you can’t play in this 10 yard box. It has to be where Bryce Look, Bryce has to get hot in the second half of this year like he did last year. If he doesn’t do that, then we’re going to have questions about his viability as their starter. Last year, the spark came from his ability to throw the ball vertically down the field. They’re not getting that right now. And I it might be hard to get that against this Falcons pass defense that’s been really good. And Jeff Oberg throws a lot of different looks at you. Yeah. And you know, we just did a a mock draft over at uh NFL and I actually had the Panthers taking Mai Lemon and that would be the third year in a row that the Panthers have taken a wide receiver in the first round. And there’s there were some people who were like, there’s no way they take a wide receiver again in the first round. But I kind of said to him, I was like, I I agree with you. It seems unlikely. You certainly don’t want to do it. But at the end of the day, if we if we look if the season were to end today, what receiving options do you have to lean on going into next year? It’s just T like that. That’s it. And you you can’t do that. You you cannot go into next year with just him to lean on. Now, Xavier gets been okay at times, but he’s still inconsistent. Jaylen Coker hasn’t played due to injury, but they even, you know, they said before the week, hey, we want to get Jaylen Coker more involved. But they weren’t even able to do that this this past week. The tight ends, they’ve played well, but they’re I don’t think they’re going to be a focal point of this offense. They’re going to be able to keep things balanced. It allows you to go to heavy personnel, but something that you can consistently lean on. I don’t know about that. That’s what’s missing from the Panthers offense right now, but that’s not to, you know, absolve Bryce of blame because there are, I think, plenty of times where he does have the ability to open it up and he just doesn’t have that confidence or he’s just not seeing it the way that he needs to. The timing is not there, the accuracy is not there. It’s a big issue for him. And we basically talked about this more on Monday. We went more in depth into this, but when the Panthers aren’t running the football well, they don’t have a passing attack that they can lean on more than the run game right now. It basically has to be 50/50 at least in order for this team to be successful. So, on the Falcons side of things though, Penn, he hadn’t been much better. You know, when you look at this past week, 36% uncatchable passes thrown. that was worst in the NFL this past week. And a lot of it was, again, we talked about this on Monday’s show. It was those sideline throws. It was those timing throws where he’s either skipping it at the receivers’s feet or he’s throwing it way over their head. He just doesn’t have a lot of confidence in being able to throw the ball exactly where he needs to give his wide receivers a chance. And and you know, going off of that, this whole season, Penn doesn’t have a quarterback rating above 90. Remember this is a out of 158.3 he doesn’t have a quarterback rating above 90 to any receiver that’s not Drake London and that includes Bejan Robinson. So PennX just does not have a lot of confidence in the receivers that he’s throwing to right now outside of Drake London. And when you become that one-dimensional that’s when things really start to be an issue for you. So that’s it’s it’s something that Pennix just simply has to play better. Pennix and Bryce just simply have to play better. Dalton, I have no idea who wins this game. I really don’t. I think this is a coin flip because both of these teams have shown they can play well. Both of these teams have shown they could play very poorly. The Falcons are at home. So, I’m going to go with the Falcons. 23 to 20. That’s my final score here. I’m going to give you a little weirder score, a similar vibe there. Um 26-20 Atlanta. And I I trust Jeff’s defense. And honestly, the first time that the Falcons played Carolina, it can’t get any worse than that. So, I mean, they have to play better than than when they lost to 30 to nothing. And I still think the best player on the field here is Bejian Robinson. And the Falcons are going to find a way to get him involved early and have him control the pace of this game. And you know, the only other question I have with Bryce Young, Trev, and this I think there’s a lot on the line in these last seven games for him as far as not just the team, but I think his career. You mentioned the mock drafts and another receiver and all of that, but if he keeps playing like this, what are the odds you get to February and you don’t have a fifth year option picked up and you’re talking about, you know what, maybe they’re looking at this quarterback class pretty soon here. Yeah. I because he’s on the third year right now, right? And so they they so he has the fourth year next year no matter what. And then it would just be whether or not they would pick up the fifth year option for him after that. Um, I think barring something just catastrophic where he plays terrible, I think Bryce is this team starting quarterback next season. Um, but I mean I man I I hadn’t really thought of it to that extent. Maybe you are right. Maybe maybe the door is open for them to be open to a change because they they benched him once, right? They benched him once after those two terrible weeks at the beginning of last season and really the only reason why he got back into the lineup is because Andy Dalton got hurt, right? It’s it’s Andy Dalton getting hurt and then Bryce comes back and then they’re like, “Thank the Lord, he’s playing well now. We could stick with him.” Yeah. I mean, if he doesn’t have a great second half of the season here, I wonder if they think about all options. You know, do they think about a veteran option? You know, we talked about Kyler Murray potentially being available with what’s going on in Arizona. Do they get into that conversation? Are they looking at the quarterback conversation in this class as well? Interesting. I I think this game this game could mean a lot to that narrative because it’s those two teams that are battling for the middle of the NFC South right now. Um, and it they’re both in a spot where these teams desperately need to get a win.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Carolina Panthers and The Atlanta Falcons.

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