The Panthers moved to 9-3 Sunday with their eighth straight win, a 27-6 manhandling of Tampa Bay that was close early until the Panthers began to dominate. Here are five of the things I liked the most about the victory, which included Brandon LaFell (above, celebrating) scoring the Panthers' first TD:
1) Riverboat Ron. I thought the key play of the game was when "Riverboat" Ron Rivera went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1 with 30 seconds to go with Carolina holding a 10-6 lead. No doubt Rivera would have kicked the field goal there earlier in his career and gone into halftime up 13-6. Instead, he goes for the jugular, Newton gets over the top a half-yard before fumbling and Carolina had a 17-6 lead and all the momentum.
2) Team defense. Even when the Panthers play badly on defense, they seem to have just enough to make up for it. Case in point: Drayton Florence gets torched for a 60-yard Vincent Jackson pass. But Florence manages a shoestring tackle at the Carolina 4, and from there the Panthers hold for two plays and Mike Glennon has an awful fumble on the third one. No points, and once again -- after yet another second-half shutout -- the Panthers will retain their overall No.1 rank in the NFL in scoring defense. The run defense was particularly effective.
3) Mike Tolbert. What a banger. With DeAngelo Williams out, he took a larger role and took the old Sam Mills motto ("Keep Pounding") to an extreme.
4) Ted Ginn Jr. He's seemingly good for about one big play a game, but what a big play it can be. Ginn's visit to Darrelle Revis's "Island" resulted in Ginn burning Revis for a 36-yard touchdown and putting the game out of reach.
5) A.J. Klein. Several times in this game the rookie linebacker looked so much like Luke Kuechly that it was tough to tell the difference. Some fans had to catch themselves as they started the old cheer of "L-U-U-U-K-E" after Klein's big sack of Mike Glennon.
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15 comments:
Is it too much to ask for a column without a numeric list occasionally? Embarrassing.
Is it too much to ask for no more silly complaints?
Anonymous...is it too much to ask for you to go away? Embarrassing?! What's embarrassing is your needling over something so trivial. You're the one thing I hated about today's win, honestly.
Newton had a decent game but he'll have to play mistake free next week.
Tolbert.... spot on. He's good at picking holes and for a man his size he's elusive. Anybody trying to arm tackle him is going to come away from the experience disappointed.
LeFell has finally started to look like an NFL Wide Receiver and Ted Ginn is a must resign during the off season. It's really too bad we brought him in on a one year contract because it's going to be much more expensive to resign him in the coming off season.
The coaching staff was good today.
Anybody who thinks that Mike Glennon can't play, based on his college game, is mistaken. If Tampa can put a quality O-Line in front of him and a few quality Wide Receivers for him to throw to they'll be all set.
It would be nice to get Johnson back next week though Brees will probably "light" up the secondary regardless.
Felt a little bad for AJ. He made some great plays yet he crowd was all LLLUUUUKKKKEE. Shows the ignorance of the average fan - Luke is not the only big white guy that can play. Maybe AJ should ask for a new number that does not start with 5.
What happened to the Jonathan Stewart we used to know?
Once again Cam is the leading rusher :/
The only thing I hated was the slow time to get "in" the stadium to see Cam's first long drive!
Stew needs to sit vs Saints. Give D - Will 20 - 25 touches and get our run game back.
We need to make Tolbert our no 1 RB. He punishes the the opponents defense. I can't say the same thing about the other RBs. I think Williams and Stewart are done.
I can’t believe nobody has the correct nick name for Tolbert The Refrigerator
Needafasterentry: Get to the game earlier instead of suckin' up beer somewhere! Can't blame security for being slow when you show up late! You know what time kickoff is, so quit beatchin. Showing up late is probably why you can't hold down a job, loser!
That name has already been used.
Miley said...
Tolbert should be called "The Wrecking Ball"!!!
Tolbert layeth the smackdown on TB!!!
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