Monday Morning Optimist: New quarterback galvanizes Panthers

Dave Canales looks like a very smart man after his semi-controversial decision to bench his young quarterback.

This past week was a whirlwind of media attention and take spitting about the Carolina Panthers, at least by Panthers standards. Dave Canales decided to bench struggling quarterback Bryce Young in favor of veteran backup Andy Dalton. The decision struck up a lot of discourse. People on the Panthers side of the aisle seemed to be almost unanimous in their approval of the decision after watching the offense flounder under Young’s watch for a season plus two games. The national discussion seemed to largely focus on what the Panthers did to set Young up for failure.

It’ll be interesting to see how those conversations change this week, if they happen at all. The Panthers looked nothing like the team that made simple first downs seem like arduous accomplishments. They moved the ball at will against the Raiders and put up almost three times as many points as they had in the previous four games combined.

They made this post very easy to write.

What I liked

Andy Dalton

Again, this is very easy to write. Andy Dalton threw for 319 yards, the most by a Panthers quarterback since…Andy Dalton in Week 3 of last season. The Red Rifle was the first quarterback in the entire NFL this season to throw for 300 yards and three touchdowns with passing numbers down around the league.

But there was more to like than just the numbers and final statistical output. Dalton’s command of the offense relative to his compatriot was shocking. The offense that made everything look difficult suddenly made everything look easy. The ball was finding open receivers. The ball was flying far enough down the field that the broadcast camera had to move to find the intended receiver. And those passes were hitting their targets. It was truly incredible to watch how much competent quarterback play can change the entire look of an offense.

I feel like I should say more to really illustrate how refreshing Dalton’s performance was.

Chuba Hubbard keeps trucking

The Panthers had a chance to play with a lead, or even without an insurmountable deficit. That let them stay with their ground game, which had been effective when it was allowed to operate in Week 2. It was allowed to operate all game against the Raiders, and it stayed effective. Hubbard toted the rock 21 times and averaged 5.4 yards per carry. He frequently broke through to the second level of the Raiders defense and was hard to bring down. He didn’t pop off any explosive runs, but he didn’t have a single carry go for negative yardage.

He also chipped in five catches for 55 more yards and a touchdown. He caught a swing pass from Dalton, made a man miss in pretty tight quarters, and burst to the pylon. He looked the part of a true three down back.

The Panthers new acquisitions look the part

Canales, Dan Morgan, and Brandt Tilis made it priority number one, two, and three to stock up the offensive side of the ball with talent so their second year quarterback would have all the tools he needed to succeed. The first two weeks made it look like all of that work was for naught, but Sunday’s win changed that.

Diontae Johnson went for a career high 122 yards receiving and caught his first touchdown as a Panther. He was the go-to number one receiver he was brought in to be. Xavier Legette only caught two balls, but he took one for 35 yards and ran through the secondary like the AJ Brown archetype he’s supposed to be.

The offensive line kept Dalton upright and opened up holes for Hubbard. The unit looked like the strong group we were promised in the offseason.

Again, it’s truly wild how good quarterback play transforms an offense.

The defense came to play too

The stats won’t do justice to how well the defense played for the majority of the game. They gave up two long touchdown drives in the fourth quarter after the game was decided and they were content to let the Raiders drive and eat up clock. In the first three quarters, however, Ejiro Evero’s unit limited the Raiders to seven points and 176 yards of offense (two fourth quarter touchdown drives totaled 140 yards).

You’d like to see them keep the pedal down a little bit more, but the first three quarters were nothing but encouraging. They were aided by the weakest offensive opponent to date, but that just means they did what they were supposed to do.

The Panthers created dysfunction for their opponent instead of being the victim of it

We’ve gotten very used to the Panthers being the dysfunctional mess on our TV screens on Sundays. That wasn’t the case this weekend. In his postgame press conference, Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce accused some of his players of making business decisions and threatened that the team would start making business decisions as well.

Dave Canales gets his first win and the boys are hyped

I’ll let the video do the work for this one.

What’s next?

The Panthers will bring the good vibes back to Charlotte. They’ll host a Bengals team playing on the road on a short week after playing Monday night.

Andy Dalton revenge game loading.