Game Grades - Panthers at Bucs

[Zod]

The atmosphere at Raymond James Stadium was electric. The Bucs fans brought their enthusiasm and were recharged with tributes to Ronde Barber on the jumbo tron all game long. Video tributes by fan favorites like Derrick Brook, Mike Alstott, Tony Dungy. It was a celebration atmosphere and it helped keep the momentum for the Bucs.

Hopefully the Panthers will have reason to celebrate this Sunday. On with the grades...

Offense:

No one notified me the Panthers would be showing their own tribute to 2010 by mimicking the anemic offense. Sloppy, undisciplined, and uninspired.

Two stats sum up the offensive, and by offensive I mean offensive, woes of the Panthers.

- 10 yards rushing total

- 2 for 10 on 3rd round conversions

Throw those two stats into any game this season, and it is a guaranteed Panthers loss.

Offensive Grade - F

Defense:

While many fans are moaning about the defense, they did manage to hold a team in their own stadium on opening day to under 17 points. That should be good enough to win the game given an adequate offensive effort.

Jon Beason returned to form with 10 tackles, 9 of them solo. Much maligned Greg Hardy was second with 8 tackles, 6 of them solo. So there were some bright spots to talk about.

All in all, not a dominating performance, but they did manage to hold the Bucs to less than 17 points despite being on the field for nearly 40 minutes.

Defensive Grade: B-

Special Teams

Bobbled balls, blocked punt. On a day the Panthers needed perfect Special Teams play, they got below average instead. While they were adequate on containing the Bucs' returns, they were inept in other facets of the game.

Special Teams Grade: D

Coaching

Ron Rivera, you were out coached by the finest college football mind New Jersey had to offer. That isn't a glowing testimonial. While it is difficult to game plan against an unknown, the Bucs did nothing spectacular in terms of game plan. In fact, they were quite vanilla.

Your team must be better prepared, mentally tougher, and execute better. This falls on you.

Coaching Grade - D-

[chknwing]

I think thats a bit harsh giving the offense and F, I mean cmon, the Panthers played horrible but were still in a position to win. Cam was still able to pass for 300 yards. Also, they scored 2 more touchdowns than they would have with Jimmy Clausen. I say the offense deserves a D but definitely not an F.

[Zod]

10 rushing yards total, and that was by our QB and a WR.

F

[nctarheel0619]

10 rushing yards total, and that was by our QB and a WR.

F

To make matters worse, that WR wasn't Smitty. Still sticking to your 13-3 prediction, Zod?

[chknwing]

that was more on coaching, besides rushing, the offense played decent. lafell and murphy stepped up since smith was blanketed by barber all day. Olsen had great day. You are selling those guys short by giving the whole offense an F. The team just wasnt prepared imo.

[nctarheel0619]

He ranked the coaching too high too. I would give them an F-

[VIP]

Smith, Olsen, Murphy, Lafell, Newton were enough reason to bump the offense above an F. Can't overlook their performances just because the o line decided not to show up (unless we needed a clutch false start flag)

[Zod]

They had as many rushing yards as points.

F

[VIP]

u so silly

[stankowalski]

Agree with most of the grades. I'd probably drop the defense grade to a C though. The Bucs didn't do anything special on offense, they played classic Foxball for the most part, which lent more to their only scoring 16 points than our defense did. But I do think the defense looked better than all of last year, which really isn't saying much I guess.

[koolkatluke]

Agree with most of the grades. I'd probably drop the defense grade to a C though. The Bucs didn't do anything special on offense, they played classic Foxball for the most part, which lent more to their only scoring 16 points than our defense did. But I do think the defense looked better than all of last year, which really isn't saying much I guess.

They were forced to play Fox ball in the 2nd half. Everytime Freeman drop backed we pressured him or ran him out the pocket. Give the defense more credit for making the Bucs play safe.

[Cape Fear Cat]

I think thats a bit harsh giving the offense and F, I mean cmon, the Panthers played horrible but were still in a position to win. Cam was still able to pass for 300 yards. Also, they scored 2 more touchdowns than they would have with Jimmy Clausen. I say the offense deserves a D but definitely not an F.

Cam's being able to throw for 300 is a testimony to the freak of nature QB he is, rather than evidence that the offense was doing something right. The Oline was TERRIBLE. On rushing downs they consistently got manhandled by the Bucs D, failing to open any kind of holes for Dwill or Tolbert to take advantage of. On passing downs they collapsed the pocket and abused our D-tackles to send a swarm of white jerseys into the backfield, forcing Cam to scramble for his life too many times. I say the F is warranted.

Reasons for optimism? Cam, Smitty, Murphy, Lafell, Olsen. But for them to hit pay dirt the Oline has GOT to get their collective s#@t together.

[footballisasport]

Are you folks sure you're fans?

IMO, the defense needed to step up more. They could barely stop a guy who wasn't able to break the 200 yeard game. What is the team going to do when they face real slinging QBs?

You folks spend way to much time making it all about your offense simply because of what Cam and the receivers did last season but let's be real, the Panthers as a whole, really need to get it together or this season is going to be worst than last season and it's not your QB's fault. This team seems to get way to complacent way to quickly...JMHO

[Delhommey]

Without a doubt, Gerard McCoy was the best player in our backfield.