Reading between the lines on offseason plans and comments shows a renewed focus on the running game
With the first week of organized team activities (OTAs) in the books, coaches are heaping praise on every step of their plan to build a competitive Carolina Panthers team for the 2025 season. We are firmly in the regularly scheduled “X player is in the best shape of his life” portion of the off season. For all the coach and agent speak that is going to flood the NFL news cycle over the coming months, there is plenty that we can read between the lines if we pay attention.
Specifics of their plans for scheme or player rotation changes are obviously being held very close to the chest right now. Many of these things are also highly fluid at the moment as coaches are only just beginning to see how their new additions work together. The Panthers defense has been almost entirely remade from the squad that started most of the 2024 season.
Coach Speak
Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero spoke yesterday about how they are evolving the defense beyond just the roster changes.
“We’re trying to really reinforce being physical and coming off the ball and getting some knockback and, we want to make sure that well that’s a big part of what we do,” Evero said Wednesday. This sounds a lot like your average coach speak that boils down to an offensive coach saying they want to score more touchdowns or a defensive coach saying they want to prevent more touchdowns.
Sure, obviously.
But it also rings as the simple truth for a Panthers team that was consistently getting knocked off the ball on defense and letting opposing teams run at will against them. This year projects to be different.
Personnel changes
For one, the team has finally signed an actual nose tackle to line up in a zero technique in their 3-4 base scheme. The team isn’t going to spend even a majority of their time in that alignment, but it will be central to how they want to defend the run on an average down. Bobby Brown III is going to be an anchor that allows guys like A’Shawn Robinson and the returning Derrick Brown to do more than just be generally in the way of opposing offensive linemen.
Free agent additions defensive end Tershawn Wharton and outside linebacker Patrick Jones II both come to the Panthers with more sacks in rotational roles in 2024 than any Panther playing that entire season. D.J. Wonnum is their stiffest competition, having posted four sacks in half a season of play. Wharton (6.5 sacks) and Jones (7) figure to upgrade a team whose talent could not find its footing last season.
Those guys alone represent a huge upgrade, but that doesn’t account for the Panthers spending two top 100 picks on edge rushers in Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen who will immediately upgrade the depth in their stable of pass rushers while also, hopefully, setting the stage for the future of their position.
The bulk of the Panthers investments in both free agency and the draft were up front on defense. The secondary has been a secondary priority this off season, with only two new faces expected to make the final roster at safety between Tre’von Moehrig and Lathan Ransom, and one veteran, Christian Rozeboom, signed to replace the recently released Shaq Thompson at inside linebacker.
Looking back and looking forward
Consider that the Panthers 2024 top five sack leaders included, at number four, inside linebacker Josey Jewell with 3.5 sacks (two sacks behind first place), and, at number five, outside linebacker Charles Harris with 3 sacks. Harris’ inclusion is particularly embarrassing for the Panthers as he was waived after Week 9 as the team’s then sack leader.
Brown III, Wharton, Jones II, Scourton, and Umanmielen guarantee an improvement in the physicality of this team. That is a very low bar to clear. The question in front of Evero is whether or not that improvement will be sufficient to raise the Panthers to having a competitive defense in the NFL.
We’ll find out when the regular season starts, but it is at least encouraging that the coaching staff is focusing on the right questions out of the gate.