Panthers vs. Giants game review: Winning is more fun than losing

Don’t look now, but the Carolina Panthers are on a winning streak.

Would you look at that, it turns out the Carolina Panthers can win more than one game in a row. Trust me, it happened, I watched it myself! Maybe it was the New York Giants having a bad day, maybe it was a few Panthers having a really good day, or maybe it was the schnitzel.

Whatever it was, it was surprisingly very fun to watch. The Panthers, the proverbial “home” team in the international series game held in Munich, Germany started the game off incredibly hot and went into halftime having shutout the Giants. The second half was a different story, as the Giants started to catch some momentum and made it a game for the electric German crowd.

While the Panthers probably should have had the game wrapped up during regulation, they found themselves in overtime and completely bereft of momentum after the Giants had just executed a 12 play game tying drive to end the 4th quarter. But wouldn’t you know it, a player in process blue finally decided to have a worthy revenge game as former Giant A’Shawn Robinson punched the ball out of Tyrone Tracy’s arms. Josey Jewell pounced on the loose ball and Eddy Pinero sent the Panthers sideline into a frenzy with a right-down-the-middle strike through of the uprights.

Since we don’t get to do this often enough, for this week’s game review let’s celebrate some of the Panthers keys to victory.

Keeping the train rolling

Reminiscent of the Panthers games of yore, the offensive run game was humming to the tune of 188 yards on 32 attempts. The freshly extended Chuba Hubbard was the biggest beneficiary with a personal record 153 yards on 28 carries. Hubbard had the most impressive rushing performance in the NFL this week by most statistical measures. Racking up nearly 40 yards more than the second place finisher in rushing yards, Hubbard also nearly doubled the second place rusher in NFL’s Next Gen Stats “rushing yards over expected” metric, averaging 2.61 yards over expected per rush in the process.

While Hubbard certainly had a strong afternoon, he didn’t do it by himself as the Panthers offensive line once again proved why they are one of the best in the NFL. 4 out of 5 starting line man had a PFF run blocking grade above 70.0, including Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis who had a 88.7 and 87.8 grade respectively. Special shoutout to Cade Mays, who was signed off the Giant’s practice squad earlier in the regular season as the Panthers back-up center and forced into action after a few injuries, to putting up back-to-back admirable performances.

Dan Morgan’s Dawgs

For all the consternation surrounding the promotion of Dan Morgan to General Manager in the offseason, Morgan’s free agent acquisitions played major roles in the success of the Panthers on Sunday:

• Robert Hunt and Damien Lewis – The two offensive guards were Carolina’s best and 3rd best offensive players, based on PFF grade

• A’Shawn Robinson – One of two Panthers who registered a sack, led the team in PFF’s “stop” metric with 5 tackles constituting a failure for the Giants offense, and of course forced the game-saving fumble on the first play of overtime
• Josey Jewell – PFF’s highest graded defender at 84.1, Jewell had an 85.1 coverage grade, came up with a interception off Daniel Jones in the red zone preventing points, and recovered the Robinson’s forced fumble in overtime.

• D.J. Wonnum – Second on the team in “Stops” with 4, registered the only other sack on a play that could have gone for 50+ yards if Jones had gotten the ball out
• Jadeveon Clowney – Team-best 79.3 pass rush grade while also and directly caused an interception by recognizing a play action boot by Jones and getting in the way of the pass to tip the ball up and into a teammates hands for the Panthers 1st turnover of the day

Bryce Young taking another step

Look, I’ve not been a fan of Young’s play for the vast majority of the season. But credit where credit is due, he seems to play better with every game. Now, him playing better is a low bar that does not mean he is necessarily playing great, but given what was put on tape in the first two weeks the general competency he has shown since Week 8 is encouraging. He didn’t turn the ball over and despite missing a couple crucial throws, he made a few big plays at opportune moments that helped propel the Panthers to victory. Despite Dave Canales being non-committal towards Young in press conferences, I suspect we’ll be seeing him for the rest of the season to evaluate his progression.

That’s all I have for you this week, Panthers fans. We have a bye week next week, but stay tuned for the Week 12 game review once the Panthers take on the Kansas City Chiefs.

Keep Pounding.