Yahoo sports 2019 NFL preview: Do the Panthers have another run left with Cam Newton?

[Khyber53]

1 hour ago, Seltzer said:

I just read that the Panthers were 10th in total offensive yardage last year.  I was surprised by that number, even though when I think about it I know the Panthers put up points last year, even with Cam not being 100% percent, until the last couple of games before they shut him down.

My point being, with everything that went wrong last year in terms of offensive line injuries and Cam's shoulder, the offense still produced at a high level overall.

Everything at the national level gets pointed back to Cam (and I get it), but in some respects, there wasn't that much difference between last year's team and 2017 except that we won a lot of close games in 2017 and lost those same type games last year.

Anyone who's not blind can point to the last couple of games Cam played (especially the MNF game before a national audience) and make a sweeping judgement about last year, but the truth is that the offensive system was working last year, and Cam was the catalyst behind that.

With a healthy Cam, the Panthers certainly have another run left in them.  Cam has played well enough to lead another SB run the past 2 years (regardless of the national narrative).  He was just stuck with no WR's in 2017 and no Oline last year.  Despite that, he still for the most part played well enough to get both teams in the playoffs (before his late injury).

Cam is not and has not been washed up.  Someone who has really watched his play too knows that his level of play for 2017 and most of 2018 was a lot closer to 2015 than his critics want to admit.

The only thing missing at all has been connecting on the deep ball, which I'm hoping a healthy shoulder, a decent offensive line, and adequate (if not special) weapons with correct.

I was going to talk about how good the write up was in the OP, but this is a much better take on the real situation. Even with Cam not at 100% Turner was able to create an offense and keep it going. We moved the ball and we scored. What we didn't do was stop the other team. In some games we weren't even a speed bump defensively. Things started looking better defensively once Ron took over the reigns, but that was a season lost not because of Cam's injury or even our patchwork O-line (who performed wayyyy better than anyone had a reason to imagine), but that our defense just sucked.

Our DC was completely out of his element and had been promoted quickly from within faster than his skillset had grown. I can't fault the guy too much because it is a rare thing for a team to lose their DC to a head coaching position two years in a row. You just don't have a line of succession that far ahead. Our guys on defense weren't well coached, well schemed or even well positioned, all three of which are vitally important when you have a unit that is almost exactly 50/50 young guys and grey beards. 

Still, it is Cam we'll be worrying about. He's Cam.