After watching the Panthers firs two games, I'm wondering which team will show up when they travel to "Jerry World" next Monday night. After the opening week performance by Jake Delhomme, many Panther fans thought, "Ok, as long as Jake doesn't have a terrible game, we should be fine".
In the opener against Philadelphia, Delhomme turned it over 5 times, leading to 24 Eagles points, and the defense played reasonably well, allowing only 14 points. Yesterday, a different story all-together. The offense seemed to click as Delhomme threw for 308 yards and a touchdown, the running back tandem of Stewart and Williams combined for 144 yards and a 5.8 average, and the team amassed 440 yards of total offense.
The defense was abominable. The interior line was gashed for 151 yards on the ground, and Falcons QB Matt Ryan picked the secondary apart with underneath routes and high-percentage passes. Ryan had ample time in the pocket and completed 78 percent of his passes, going 21-27 for 220 yards, three touchdowns and a 122.2 QB rating. The defensive front wasn't able to get any pressure on Ryan and didn't force a punt until 5:46 remained in the fourth quarter after seemingly the first blitz of the game.
Dallas ran for more than 200 yards on the Giants last night and if the Panthers don't want to go to 0-3, they're going to have to make some vast defensive improvements. Like I've said all along, Jake Delhomme's bad games are an anomaly and shouldn't happen very often, so I think they're fine on that front. Tony Romo proved last night that under pressure, he makes mistakes. If the Panthers can improve the run defense and get some pressure on Romo, I think the Panthers pick up their first win of the young season.
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