The Panthers started the season off with a win over the New York Jets. Here is a recap of what went right and what went wrong.
The Good
Carolina got the "W" in the win column. It's always good to start the year with a win. Winning breeds confidence and confidence builds swagger. The defense finished with six sacks tied for Arizona for the league lead. What's even more impressive, six different players registered at least half a sack.
The defense limited the Jets to 45 rushing yards, 207 passing yards (252 total). Only the Bills, Cardinals, and Saints allowed fewer total yards. Seven punts were forced on 60 total plays allowed to give the Panthers the league lead in punts per play allowed (12%). This was a problem area at times last year. It's good to see the defense answering the bell.
Christian McCaffrey is back to the tune of 187 total yards (98 rushing, 89 receiving) with 9 receptions on 30 total touches. He didn't find the end zone, but a monster game nonetheless. His presence gives the offense options and gives the defense nightmares in terms of coverage strategies.
Sam Darnold's Panthers debut was impressive, finishing with 279 yards passing on 24-for-35 with 1 touchdown, 0 interceptions, plus he added a 5-yard rushing touchdown. Overall, he had a 102.0 quarterback rating.
The Bad
Carolina was 4-for-13 on third down percentage (28.57%) and 1-for-4 (25%) in red zone touchdown percentage. Both are areas of concern that were problematic last season. If Carolina wants to compete in the division and make some headway in the loaded NFC they will need to become more efficient in the red zone and score more than two touchdowns per game.
Ryan Santoso's missed extra point. Never mind the fact that Santoso was perfect on both field goal attempts (both inside 30 yards), the missed extra point stands out, especially when we see former Panthers kicker Joey Slye converting three field goals and all four extra points in his Houston debut.
The Ugly
Nothing stood out as completely ugly. Carolina did convert on at least one of their four red-zone attempts. Perhaps what would quality as ugly is me nearly blowing a gasket when Carolina was lined up for another fourth-down attempt on the Jets 6-yard line, leading by eight points with 8:48 to go. A field goal would give them a two-score advantage and they were looking like they might try to go 0-2 on fourth down attempts inside the 10-yard line. Luckily it was all a ruse to try to draw the Jets offsides and they wound up kicking a field goal, but at that moment I wondered if Matt Rhule was out of his mind.
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