Rough Loss in Dallas

The Panthers lost 21-7 Monday night against Dallas. I'll be honest, I was pretty optimistic with my prediction of the Panthers winning in my last post. I'm biased towards the Panthers, so if you want a realistic prediction, check out espn or Vegas.

I thought this was a pivotal game for the season: If they won, they could easily get this season back on track; If they lost, they would be in a bad situation that didn't look too good. And they lost. People, if they weren't already, are now yelling for Jake Delhomme to be benched and John Fox to be fired. As for me, I'm still not entirely sure what my view is on these topics. I know something has to be changed or altered for the team to change, but I don't know what to change. The easy answer to this question is get rid of Delhomme and Fox. But how about telling Julius Peppers to get off the couch and play a down. Or tell the O-line to make some holes for the run game. Or tell Steve Smith to live up to his hype. Or tell all the D-backs to make a tackle. The team as a whole is not doing well, its not just Jake, even though there is definitely some blame that deserves to go his way. The Panthers have a bye this coming week, so hopefully they can figure some of these things out during this time. If they don't figure something out, then two weeks from now I'll be saying we are in an even worse position than we are now.

Preview: Panthers @ Cowboys

The Panthers are playing against Dallas Cowboys in this week's Monday Night Football game. We are 0-2 so far this season and we really need a win this week to turn around the season and to restore faith in this team. While this game is at the Cowboys, which clearly works in their favor, I think the Panthers have a few things in their favor to win. First, the Cowboy's RB Marion Barber has a leg injury and it's doubtful he will play. Considering how shallow we are at D-line this year, we can use some help by having other teams' starting RB injured. (On a side note, where has Julius Peppers been this year? How much are we paying him again? I'll be sure to talk about him at another time in depth). Also, I think that our running game is about to take off from the ground. I think this will happen because we clearly have the talent in RBs Williams and Stewart (just look at last year's stats) and those two are too good of players to be a small factor for so long. Once our running game is back up and running (no pun intended), Jake Delhomme will have less pressure on him which will lead to him having better games. So I think we can beat the Cowboys because their running game is questionable at this point in time and because I think our running game is about to improve leading to an all around better team which can win games.

Predicted score: Panthers 24 Cowboys 17

Gray

Carolina's loss at Atlanta

Panthers 20, Falcons 28

The Carolina panthers are off to a 0-2 start this season after being destroyed by the Eagles at home and loosing to the Falcons in Atlanta. The first game was hard to watch. We were taken apart by the eagles and much of this was due to Jake Delhomme's multiple turnovers (but you can not put all the blame of these turnovers on him, after all there are other players on the team who help prevent those i.e. offensive line, etc.). While it is hard to support Jake after that game and last season's similar performance in the playoffs, I still have hope for him and there was hope showing in the loss to Atlanta. While we did not win, we improved drastically from last week. Jake had a decent game, driving down the field in the fourth quarter and completing a nice TD pass to Dante Rosario, which seemed like the verge of a comeback. Unfortunately, we weren't able to come back and win, but Jake's single turnover of the game came on a fourth down pass where he had no option but to throw it into coverage. After watching the panthers perform much better against the falcons than the eagles, I still believe this can be a successful season. I don't think we are NFC champions are Superbowl contenders this year, but I think we have a shot at making the playoffs and that would be a great season if we accomplished that.

Also, Steve Smith had a very nice game with 131 yards receiving. Williams and Stewart both contributed to an alright rushing game, not their strongest performances but still respectable. As soon as Jake gets back in a rhythm, that will open the door for these two amazing running backs to accomplish what they did last year.

Next game: Monday Night @ the Dallas Cowboys

The First Post

Well it is the start of the 2009 NFL season and I will be blogging about the Carolina Panthers for the season. Just a Little background info about me: I lived in Charlotte and have been a fan of the Panthers my whole life. Even if it turns out to be a bad season for them, I will still be cheering for them. In this blog I will try to cover several aspects of the season including my view of upcoming games, my analysis of past games, my view of individual players in general and their specific performances, and any other aspect of the Panthers this season.

Go Panthers!!

-Gray