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2021 Unsung Heroes: Yetur Gross-Matos

Icege

By Icege,
in Carolina Panthers

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Icege Grand Master

Icege

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Introduction

To give myself at least something to try and look forward to with this team, I've taken to going through some of the recent games and focusing on specific players that are showing progress in a season where it seems like everything has regressed. If you're interested in the first write-up which covered Tommy Tremble, click here. For this particular thread though, we'll hop on over to the defensive side of the ball where a player that I've been particularly hard on has come into his own as of late: Yetur Gross-Matos. I wasn't impressed with Yetur during his rookie season, especially concerned with his slow and late get off, how easily overpowered he was, and the lack of a quick twitch. The one quality that did stand out though, was that his motor never stopped running. While the team currently deploys him in what they feel are passing situations, as we'll see from the tape he's also growing into his role as a run defender as well. Let's take a look at what he put on film during the week 15 loss against Buffalo and just how wrong I've been about him!

"Watching the Tape"

Q1 13:14 - 2nd & 10 (BUF 40) - YGM lines up as the 3-technique and upon seeing the potential sweep rips the guard down and begins to seal off the edge. The play was a fake that went to the other side and also resulted in a penalty for an ineligible man downfield, so they lost yardage but YGM would have blown this play up had it come his way. Seeing as the staff seems to rotate him in for passing situations currently, they must be hoping to work him slowly into the starting line up next season as a 3-down guy.

Q1 11:51 - 3rd & 15 (BUF 35) - Yetur lines up at the 3-technique again, this time absorbing a shove from the LG who is looking to leak out and block for a screen. After bouncing off of the inside shoulder of the LT, YGM comes free at Allen as Haason Reddick is beating Daryl Williams clean on the right side. I'd like to point out here that Brian Burns is put in excellent position to undercut the slant route that Allen is looking towards. Chinn is also overtop as well. I'm not sure if this play call was designed to have Burns spy Allen and react, or if that was all him when he saw Allen looking his way. Great defense overall resulting in a sack-fumble.

Q1 6:34 - 3rd & 12 (BUF 22) - Phil Snow likes to have his DTs line up as 3-techs on passing downs, and here Fox + Gross-Matos run a bit of an awkward stunt inside that Buffalo appears to block well. With everybody else tied up, Gross-Matos beats the RG inside and forces Allen to scramble and get rid of the ball. Hartsfield was able to clean up the play, tackling Dawson Knox to keep him to a 9yd gain and force the punt. On a play where literally everybody else gets blocked, Yetur is able to make a play and help the team's 3rd down defensive ranking.

Q2 4:33 - 2nd & 10 (BUF 11) - This might be my favourite play of Yetur's from the Bills game. It's a stretch run to the strong side with Yetur lined up on the weak side as the 3-tech. At the snap, he starts running down the line with the rest of the team and with one arm just obliterates Spencer Brown before running over the RG from behind to help Fox + Reddick bring down the RB. This is the type of tape that he needs to put out to convince the coaches that he's not a liability in the run.

Q3 14:17 - 3rd & 8 (BUF 28) - Spencer Brown gets beat so bad around the corner that he gets to the point where he's about to ask YGM for a piggyback ride. The little extra shove he gave him afterwards ended up being enough to cause Yetur to stumble as he forces Allen to move off of the spot and get rid of the ball. Unfortunately, the NFL only cares about (some) QBs, so even though he didn't catch Allen around the knees and was down at his feet/ankles that's still technically below the knee. The holding call is offset by the roughing the passer call, and on the following play Allen scrambles for 26yds. The next set of downs though would result in them having to punt it away to Carolina.

Q3 7:56 - 3rd & 9 (BUF 39) - Few plays highlight Yetur's motor like it does on this scramble where Allen went for 0yds. If not for a Bravvion Roy penalty for unnecessary roughness, this would've killed the drive and forced Buffalo to attempt a 58yd FG or punt it away. Instead, following the penalty eventually were a 28yd pass to Gabriel Davis and then a 20yd TD pass also to Davis to put Buffalo up 24-8. That hustle from YGM where he outran Haason Reddick to shove Josh Allen out of bounds is the type of effort you want to see during a season where they can't trust their offense. It shows that he's still focusing on just getting his job done and doing what he can to help the team win. Absolutely loved this play, hated the bullshit on the sidelines from Roy. He was doing enough damage getting gashed in the run game when he was in, he didn't need to fug things up for the guys that were actually doing their job.

Summary
Yetur Gross-Matos' 5 tackle, 1TFL, 2.5 sack, 1 forced fumble, and 3 QB hits stat line was produced on just 29 snaps which was just 41% of all defensive snaps.  The team has put up ugly performance after ugly performance in this downward spiral of a season, but YGM has continued to develop and grow. He's currently playing at 265 and in his recent press conference said that he could get bigger should the team ask him too. While we don't know if he's going to be bigger in 2022, in 2021 at least Yetur Gross-Matos has joined Tommy Tremble as one of this team's unsung heroes. The team currently seems to prefer using him as a DT in wide 9 fronts on passing downs, but he's shown the ability to blow up run plays in the backfield as well. Let's hope he starts getting more opportunities, as that might help this run defense that keeps getting gashed.

Edited by Icege
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Icege Grand Master

Icege

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4 hours ago, Shlomo said:

Nice breakdown! Really high on YGM and I think he's a great building block for this defense

Much appreciated! I was very, very down on him during his rookie season and the early part of this one. One thing that always stood out though was that he seemed to always flash at least once or twice, even when going through some rookie struggles.

It might be that his lack of burst and stagnant hands were just due to the rookie wall that guys have to run through until they're able to process at the speed that the league requires. Whatever it was, he looks like he can be a regular on this line next season which should help the defense.

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mav1234 Grand Master

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Appreciate the time you're putting into these. It's hard for me to get up the energy to care about individual players but it has felt YGM makes a big difference in run support often, which gives me hope that he can become a good all around player for us.  Nice to see some of his growth is born out on the tape... Ive been worries Rhule is ruining all our promising young players...

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