And that means getting back to the kind of balance they’re always looking for. Even going back to last year, when they made their late-season run, there was a clear pattern.
Looking at the final six games in December and January, in the three good ones (the loss to Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia and overtime wins over the Cardinals and Falcons), the Panthers ran it 100 times and threw it 95. In the losses to Tampa Bay (twice) and the Cowboys, they ran it 48 times and threw 102.
And while the Panthers have shown the ability to rebound from bad performances (witness their inability to move the ball downfield against the Saints with the shot plays Young was hitting the following week in Atlanta), they also know other teams see that.
So, offensive coordinator Brad Idzik said they plan for that kind of approach by varying the looks they show in both the run and the pass game.
“It starts with the plan,” Idzik said. “So, a big piece of who we want to be is making sure, when you put a concept in that you think will be good against the team, whether it’s run or pass, you say, OK, what can and what have they shown to do to combat that? What’s a reaction they might have if this is hitting at this particular time? Let’s put in something to protect that. If it’s an angle of the cut in a route concept, or it’s a formation or motion that we’ve shown, and we know that they’re going to carve up that play on their defensive side because it’s hit, what can we do to combat that, protect it, or present it a different way?”
They do that in a number of ways, with personnel and formations. One of their early adjustments as they incorporated rookie receiver Jimmy Horn Jr. was to put him in motion on run plays, and occasionally hand it to him. Likewise, Hubbard has often been on the field on a lot of third downs this year (even when Dowdle was on his mid-season heater) because he’s the better pass-protector of the two. Against the Rams, they handed it to him on five third downs, just to keep the opponent honest. He converted three of them on the ground, and on the other two that were stopped, Young was able to hit Jalen Coker and Tetairoa McMillan deep for fourth-down touchdowns on the following down, the kinds of plays that come from the gradual effect of the run game on play-action. When it all works, it all works well together.