Sunday, October 24, 2010

5 things I liked most in Panthers' win over 49ers

The 5 things I liked the most in Carolina's 23-20 win over San Francisco Sunday:

1. Matt Moore. He came back with a flourish, reminding people of the Matt Moore from 2009 once again and burying rookie Jimmy Clausen back on the bench for awhile. Moore threw for 308 yards, overcame one horrid interception and got Carolina to its first fourth-quarter touchdown of the season.

2. The rookie receivers. David Gettis was undeniably the star, with 125 reception yards and two touchdowns – the first TDs of his career. But don’t forget Brandon LaFell, who easily had his best game (six catches, 91 yards) and caught the 35-yarder that set up John Kasay’s winning field goal.

3. John Kasay. Easy to forget now after that wild fourth quarter, but Carolina wouldn’t have been in position to win unless Kasay had already made field goals from 55 and 47 yards. As steady as ever, Kasay, 40, is 8-of-9 this season. He also hit the game-winner, from 37 yards.

4. Richard Marshall’s interception. David Carr isn’t much of a quarterback – we all know that from 2007 – but it took Marshall to really make him pay. Marshall’s interception of Carr’s underthrown pass when the game was tied at 20 set up Carolina’s final drive.

5. Steve Smith. He volunteered to return punts – and return to his roots – and that helped inspire the Panthers. Smith had one return for 32 yards, caught four balls for 50 and most importantly allowed Gettis and LaFell to routinely work against single coverage.

One last note: This will be my last blog post for a week -- I'm about to be off until Monday, Nov.1st, so Happy Halloween to all of you and thanks for reading "Scott Says" and The Observer. But I wouldn't want to miss making my weekly Panthers prediction.

So.... I'm now 4-2 picking Panthers' games after correctly choosing Carolina to upset San Francisco Sunday.

The Panthers go on the road to face St. Louis (3-4 after a last-second loss to Tampa Bay today) on Oct.31st. I'm picking Carolina to win its second straight game, 20-17, over the Rams.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoy your vacation, Scott

Anonymous said...

Isaiah says:
Thanks for staying positive, have a good break.
Last week i commented about how many times we had 22 people within the hashes and still tried to run it inside, today much better spread of formations, and hey no stupid worthless WR inside motion that they used for five games that only brought a defender into the box. Notice SF's first couple drives lots of 11 sets (1 rb 1 te meaning 3 wr) we need to go some 20 (2 rb's and 2 wr's. We did better but still have to learn in this league with all the 300+ bodies you need to spread it out to run, which also allows you natural pass sets for good balance.

But hey we run! I also said last week we have talent, just have to utilize it, which we finally did to a degree (maybe Foxy read this blog!)

We still have some poor patterns, very little crossings and rubs, for instance if you utilized Goodsen or Edwards with our three WR's who played well today, and add the short snags, flips and other flanker patterns (could use Smitty inside with this too) like NE uses Welker or Edleman and now Danny woodhead, we'd be really dangerous and run game would come along.
Congrats Panthers
some bad
1st Q drop by Smith
2nd Q Williams drop, then dances vs running hard on 3rd and 2.
Then Williams doesn't make proper read, dances around, sprints outside and doesn't switch ball to outside arm so it is stripped from inside and fumble!
Another big gain to a RB in flat (other games it was TE in flat) we need to learn how to defend that play!
Illegal SF block, WR blocking before the catch, not called.
2Q 6.24 - how does kalil often seem to be standing on other side of defense blocking no one (having written that he just makes a good block)

2Q 1;50 marshall big missed tackle

Anonymous said...

isaiah says #2
3Q 14.25 gore gets big run fortunately called back for holding, but hold was not near the play someone outta place?
11:05 ladies and gentleman time for Jordan Gross' weekly false start penalty!!!
3Q 10:00ish two good zone 4 man rushes by us (mistakenly called blitzes both time by lame tv announcers)
3Q 10:00 Schwartz knocked on butt by bull rush
3Q 9:40 lame tv announcers call Dan Conner 'Morgan'
3Q 8:00 stop running freaking screens we suck at that and have gained nothing!
3Q 7.11 DeAngelo finally sees a cutback right away, not sure what he is being coached vision wise, but as good as he is if he had a little more upfield vision by keeping shoulders square he'd be more awesome despite our not so good blocking
*another freaking scree MINUS 6 yards, stupid play calling.
It's 3rd and four and four down territory, even at our anemic 2.2 yards per carry that means run twice and get first down.
Especially learn to go "11" or 3 wr's, 1 te, 1 RB spread it out and then run! plus 3rd and four is the worst possible time to call a screenplay.
3Q 3min AHH Jordan Gross finally gets a penalty on Def instead of false start, let's hope it is a trend of things to come.
stupid penalty by Steve Smith, as always love his aggressiveness, and actually think it is a bad call, but he should be wiser .. tries to attune and drops catch, tries to atone and now fumbles, come on man!
Loved him being on punt returns though!!!
2:50 ish Pugh and Anderson out of place = 18 yard gain followed by beason peeking inside (Hey Jon, remember you are an outside LB now) and gets cut, big gain SF.
Nervous now!
4th QWe get ball back and slide protection screen leaving King one on one with rush specialist = hurry = INT for TD. (bad protection scheme = coaches formation and call fault more then king and Moore)
4th - Gettis drops TD,
We get sack but immediately allow big run
3:13 it's 3rd and 1 and we get false start to go 3rd and 6 - gotta stop that, has been going on all year (Williams first time though so a little grace if it had been gross I'd go balistic)
TD Gettis, cool beans (I'd still prefer him to turn and celebrate with teammates instead of running soccer goal style away form everyone to be seen, just don't like that at any level college or pro)
1:44 missed tackle goes form 7 to 22 yard gain (ought oh getting nervous again)
1:39 to 1:15 SF false start, why wasn't that an automatic ten second runoff under two minutes?
marshall makes up for missed tackle with great pick
Good catch by LaFell and throw by moore and great blitz pick up be DeAngelo!
77 seconds - think we should be in spread formation to run, not bunched up to run and yes we gain like 2 yards - spread them out to open some seems - but we all know Kasey will hit it! and he does, that guys is GOOD.
Go Panthers, what a load off their backs. please Foxy, don't shrink our offensive down next week but expand the mixes! over and out. (I need a life)

Anonymous said...

One thing I liked about the game was the BRILLIANT coaching strategy, and one gained through personal knowledge. The best move of the game was forcing David Carr into the game. Well played FOXY!!!!

Elizabeth said...

It was great to see Kasey, the original Panther, be a hero again!

Curtis Watkins said...

Well, I only caught the last 5 minutes of the game (thanks to my crappy DirecTV DVR which "forgot" to start recording...blast you DirecTV!!). But at least I was able to catch the critical moments in the game. Since I missed most of it, I can't comment on much else other than the last 5 minutes but those minutes looked pretty good. Granted, SF isn't all that great from what I can gather. But, Matt looked pretty sharp and THANK GOODNESS some other receivers FINALLY stepped up. Case in point, in the tying TD the safety stepped over to double up on Smitty - and Gettis burned single coverage for the TD. Awesome. If we can do that every week, we can make a game out of it.

Ahhh...nice way to cap off the weekend. Finally a win!

Jen, looks like we are off the hook for a 0 - 16 season. Woo hooo!! Hope you were able to bust out the happy dance for the first time this year!

Jennifer said...

Curtis I did the happy dance at the game, it was such a beautiful day and the Win felt amazing ( duh lol)...

We even got to dance longer waiting for the review, just made it sweeter...

Hope all is well..........

Mr. Scott have a great week off and hope the family enjoys a very happy halloween!!

Moronic Fanbase said...

Stop dreaming about wins this was a fluke. The Fortyniners are clearly a better team than the Panthers. Gettis had 1 lucky game and suddenly he is the best thing since sliced bread to you people. The Panthers need to trade him now for a 3rd round pick. And starting Moore was just dumb. Edwards would have thrown for 800 yards today if he started. How do you know unless you try him? Steve Smith is playing like he wants to be traded. He could be great if he had a team he really wanted to win but its clear he hates playing for the Panthers.

Sportsdon said...

Nothing like a win. Even sweeter after a string of losses for the team that gets it.

Good to see Moore in action, GREAT to see Carr back as well. Don't believe Alex Smith would miss so many open recievers.

Still worried at the many short runs 1-2 yards on first an second downs. Not getting the RB to the second level much.

Smith is not the same speedy guy he once was on PR's but it was still fun to see him back there.

Anonymous said...

What a joke. Termite vs termite. Mouse vs mouse. A winless pathetic team vs a winless pathetic team squeaks out a tight lucky win & its cause for major celebration? At least SF will now get the 1st draft pick.

Then again it clearly appears the local pathetic pro pigskin team have whiners in both Carolinas in a serious psychotic mental grip & their entire worthiness & existence on earth is based on who has the highest score when the game clock expires. Sickos.

Chill. They still suck and will be 1-15 again.

Anonymous said...

woo hoo! Super Bowl here we come!

Darin is an idiot said...

If only we could play the 49ers every week. Reality will sink back in next week that we are still a poor football team.

Moronic Fanbase said...

Fox must go immediately. He has given up on this season and just looking toward his next job. None of the players want to play for him anymore. And take Hurney with him. Hurney has drafted horribly. He would'nt know a good draft if it punched him in the eye. Richardson went cheap this year and they got what he paid for. A losing team with no hope for any future.

Curtis Watkins said...

***Sigh***
I don't know why I bother responding to some of these, but sometimes I can't help it:
‘Mornic Fanbase’ - I find it highly entertaining that someone who hides behind a moniker intended to insult Panther fans knows so little about football to begin with. 800 yards if Edwards started? And if you really think the players don’t want to play anymore for Fox you obviously don’t understand Coaches and Players. If you think for one second there is any professional athlete on this team that ever thinks “Well, I don’t like Coach Fox so I’m not going to play my best today” – well perhaps you should change the second part of your name from ‘Fanbase’ to ‘Poster’. You do realize all of these guys do this for a living? Do you ever go into work (assuming you have a job) and say “I don’t like my boss so I’m going to goof off today – that’ll show ‘em!”. Yeah, that’s just brilliant. And saying Hurney doesn’t draft well – Beason, Peppers, Williams, Stewart, Smith, Kalil, Conner, etc. So, let’s make sure we are clear here on your position – none, absolutely none of the draft picks over Hurney’s tenure here – are good? Think about your answer here because you will only solidify your current standing of not understanding football if you stick with your original position…
Anon @ 7:24 – First of all, what kind of analogies are you making up on here? “Termite vs. termite”? Really? While you are at it, why not make up more superfluous battles of two words? How about – “spoon vs. spoon”? Or “watch vs. watch”? Hold on, let me look around my office – okay, here are some more. “Laptop vs. laptop” or “chair vs. chair”. Now that’s effective creative writing right there! And secondly, if you are going to try to insult at least get your facts right …SF has one win this year. The rest of your post is obviously childish ranting I won’t even address.

Now, to more serious posters:

Whoa Isiah! Someone was obviously taking some notes during the game! Some excellent point there. One thing I think I took away from it all was that despite having chances to pack it up and give up on some bad plays (the early TD, dropped TD pass, INT for TD by Moore) these guys hung in there. I haven’t seen that this year. Good they finally did. Doesn’t sound like a team not “wanting to play for their coach” to me.

Jen – all is well, at least Monday’s are a bit sweeter after a win. You know, despite what the naysayers post here (if we lose and complain we are an “awful fan base unlike the other cities” or if we win and celebrate we are “spoiled fans who had success to early”)…me, you, Isiah, others are proof of a core set of fans that support our team in the good and bad. Say what they will – the rest of the season may go down in an all consuming glory of flames – we are here to post about it. And no, Mr. “I won’t put my name behind my childish comments”, it is not because we “base our existence” on the Panthers. The fact anyone would even post that tells me you don’t understand sports. We are the fans. We agonize over the loss and we celebrate the wins. But if you aren’t there for the bad times you can’t appreciate the good times as much. So, GO PANTHERS!! We may only win a handful of games this year but you better believe we’ll be watching!!

Moronic Fanbase said...

This team is worse than the team that went 1-15 with Seifert. I would bet they dont win another game all season. Fox came in after a 1-15 season and he will leave after a 1-15 season. He will take that no account Meeks with him. Let Davidson coach the team, at least he knows how to call plays. They need to trade whatever players they can get a draft pick for so they can rebuild this loser team completely for Davidson to coach it next year.

This team is worse than the team that went 1-15 with Seifert. I would bet they dont win another game all season. Fox came in after a 1-15 season and he will leave after a 1-15 season. He will take that no account Meeks with him. Let Davidson coach the team, at least he knows how to call plays. They need to trade whatever players they can get a draft pick for so they can rebuild this loser team completely for Davidson to coach it next year.

This team is worse than the team that went 1-15 with Seifert. I would bet they dont win another game all season. Fox came in after a 1-15 season and he will leave after a 1-15 season. He will take that no account Meeks with him. Let Davidson coach the team, at least he knows how to call plays. They need to trade whatever players they can get a draft pick for so they can rebuild this loser team completely for Davidson to coach it next year.

This team is worse than the team that went 1-15 with Seifert. I would bet they dont win another game all season. Fox came in after a 1-15 season and he will leave after a 1-15 season. He will take that no account Meeks with him. Let Davidson coach the team, at least he knows how to call plays. They need to trade whatever players they can get a draft pick for so they can rebuild this loser team completely for Davidson to coach it next year.

This team is worse than the team that went 1-15 with Seifert. I would bet they dont win another game all season. Fox came in after a 1-15 season and he will leave after a 1-15 season. He will take that no account Meeks with him. Let Davidson coach the team, at least he knows how to call plays. They need to trade whatever players they can get a draft pick for so they can rebuild this loser team completely for Davidson to coach it next year.

Lynne Stevenson said...

Scott, take care and enjoy your well deserved vacation! The only thing that matters is they finally won and Matt Moore is back where he belongs, not warming the bench...

Mike S. said...

What a great come from behind win for the Panthers! I can't wait to see them play the sorry ass Rams this week. Two W's in a row baby! Here we come! Get your flight reservations for Dallas. We'll be there in February.

Anonymous said...

We all KNEW that Matt Moore had the ability to play at that level, because our offensive line hasn't done their job all year, it's been tough. The one guy that I always lean on weekly to get hands around everything? SCOTT!

Anonymous said...

I posted comments here in the observer during the preseason that gettis would emerge as a premiere receiver while most others were screaming to cut him.

Anonymous said...

The Panthers and 49ers would be much more exiting and better off exiting the NFL and joining the CFL since Canadian teams are easily on par with Carolina or San Francisco cellar dwellers and Fox or the rest of the team wouldnt lose their jobs.

The CFL runs from June to November and the 8 teams in 8 Canadian cities are spread out vastly. They need a couple of eastern and western US teams in their 50 year old league where instead of the Super Bowl the Panthers would def have a shot at winning the Grey Cup trophy.

This way distraught suicidal fans would feel better about themselves and and wouldnt have to have sharp objects or projectiles hidden from them.

Rae said...

A win is a WIN! Great way to get that monkey off of your back!

Anonymous said...

rae carruth has access to a pc? yikes

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said...
rae carruth has access to a pc? yikes"

I don't care who you are, now that's funny!

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or is "Moronicfanbase" the biggest moron on here? He should go back to his Bucs bandwagon and let the real fans enjoy a win b/c that's what fans do. We are realistic. Get off of it.

Anonymous said...

Carruths ordeal also lead to Sieferts and Weinkes downfall but its not hard to imagine what coulda shoulda woulda been had this dumb 1999 murder tragedy stupidity not occured all over a pregnancy.

With 5 time Super Bowler Siefert at the helm and his famous west coat invented defense and 2 All Americans with U Colorado WR Carruth plus FSU Heisman QB Weinke you were talking 2 Super Bowls wins easy. Maybe 3.

Ignorance.

Jimmy said...

Don Gregory, the Carolina Panthers Director of College Scouting, was seen this past weekend at the Capitol Grill, one of his favorite establishments while he's here in Charlotte.

aennis1 said...

Go Panthers!!!

Anonymous said...

Look at the good side. The economy and the panthers suck so even if the panthers were 6-0 the economy would still suck.