The good The bad the ugly

[Makish]

The Good

Cam Newton- Looked poised in the pocket and threw close to 70% completions, other then the go pass to smitty in which he under threw the ball, Cam had a good game, but was indecisive on plays where he should have run

Steve Smith- Played like Steve Smith

Jon Beason- Looked great north to south tackling , but looked winded a couple of times. The Beast is back

Dwan Edwards - didn't start, but damn did he finish 6 Tackles and a sack. The run D looked so much better with him in then Kearse.

WRs core - Everyone looked good

Pass D- When we played man to Man, are D was great against the pass, but Freeman picked apart are Cover 2 zone D

The Bad

Luke Kuechly- Kid looked decent in the first half and just disappered in the second half, couldn't get off blocks in the second half

Pash rush- maybe 3 plays where we had a good push, most of the pressure was because of the coverage and Freeman held the ball to long

Run Defense- I wouldn't say the run D was bad , but a few holes opened up to easily and if Beason wasn't their to save a few long gain, we would have given up more the 200 yards rushing

The Ugly

Starting OG-Wow just wow did they play bad , McCoy just abused both of are Guards . Anytime we pulled a guard on a run play, they got pushed back and never held their ground(Ex. toss left, RG pulls toward the left and Bucs over blitz and the rightside and LT LG RG got pushed back into RB on the side with no blitz, 2 yard lost)

Running Game- Coach gave up on the run at half time only down 13, you just can't do that on a team with 4 playmakers in the backfield

Coaching-Just got out coached by a College Coach. We telegraphed are plays, their Lbers were going crazy on run plays as if they knew we were going to run the ball.The gameplan seemed very vanilla. As Mike Martz said Shiano saw something on the punt block and overloaded one side , which cost us the game. I'm starting to notice the little lapses in details in are coaching staff that hurt the overall team.

[saX man]

The lack of upfront pressure is definitely the most frustrating thing especially when our blitz packages NEVER seem to work

The thing that got to me was the lack of awareness to tackle guys for losses by CJ and Ron on several occasions

We were flat and didn't really show up. Here's to a better week 2

[Fox007]

Good thing we brought in a DC with awesome blitz packages.

[Guild]

Why is it always obvious who is blitzing? Sometimes I feel like it's our LBs body language being read too easily.

[chknwing]

Special Teams played well

[CRA]

My take

Good

- McD and his D - allowed only 16 points. Adjusted to a team not on film and shut them down in the 2nd half. Not great yet and they had flaws.....but overall that is exactly what we needed last year and never got in games. They repeatedly stopped the Bucs in the 2nd half and put the ball back in our offenses hands. Forced 6 punts in the 2nd half allowing only a fg.

- Frank Alexander - best rookie performance - batted passes often get forgotten but he had 2. Those are nice plays.

- Thomas Davis - seems to always look like a Pro Bowler when he is on the field. Looked great.

- I though the WRs looked good. They can only run the routes called and they were running deep ones with Cam under pressure.

- our new DT Edwards

- overall Captain I thought stepped up. he is limited and not very good....But I think he outplayed our more talented CBs. I am excluding his ST play and just talking CB play.

Beason - for a guy that hasn't seen action since AZ - dude was balling

The bad/ugly

- punt protection

- OL was put in a tough position but even our stud lineman just got beat and abused at times that just weren't acceptable.

- Chud - didn't establish the run. handicapped the offense and didn't use Williams properly. He also didn't adjust to the overly aggressive pass rush but rather played into.

- Gamble - he seems to play good football every other season. His bar is set high...and he has to be better. Norman can have excuses...Gamble can't.

[jarhead]

The good: Front 7 played well enough to win.

Seeing Beason and TD back on the field in competitive form

2nd half adjustments on defense dramatically reduced 3rd down conversion rate in the 2nd half.Frank Alexander -two big batted down passes Better inside push DT play was much better than last year

The bad: Small mistakes like penalties hurt when you are playing a close game

Cam should not have hung that ball up to Smitty.The tip interception is going to happen

Lack of execution on offense.We looked lost all night long.It should have been obvious early on that we needed to be running behind a fullback and not out of the shotgun.The offense coaching was bad and did poorly on making adjustments.Disappointed in the play of Gamble

The offensive line that was so heralded was bad.McCoy welcomed our young OG to the NFL

The ugly when it is so bad you have a punt blocked its just plain ugly.

Inability to finish.We were in the game until the very end but could not finish on offense and defense.We could not hold them on a critical 3rd down late and were unable to finish on offense.Too many 3rd and longs equals ugly execution