Andy Dalton gets his shot at the starting quarterback gig for the Carolina Panthers.
It’s been quite a whirlwind of news in Carolina Panthers world this week. If you’ve been living under a rock until this very moment, Dave Canales decided to make a change at quarterback and benched Bryce Young in favor of Andy Dalton. That’s going to create massive change in the Panthers offense in all likelihood. Dalton is long in the tooth and gray in the beard, but he’s a prototypical NFL quarterback that is known for good decision making and his ability to run an offense. That’s been lacking with Bryce Young in the first two weeks, and it’s led to an offense whose incompetency is only rivaled by Caleb Williams and the Bears, ironically enough.
Dalton gets a pretty good match-up for his first snaps of the season. The Raiders are 1-1 after a surprising win at the Baltimore Ravens last week, but I think it’s fair to say they stole that win. The defense allowed the Ravens to average 6.1 yards per paly. However, the Raiders benefitted from a number of Ravens penalties and looked dead in the water until they scored 13 straight points in the fourth quarter. Despite the win, their defense currently ranks 25th in defensive DVOA. That’s a decent place to start for a “new” quarterback.
This is the second straight season in which Andy Dalton will take the reins for a Week 3 contest out west. Last year, he filled in for one week while Bryce Young nursed an ankle injury that might have also been a convenient excuse to give him a break. In that game, Dalton threw the ball 58 times for 361 yards. In hindsight, it was a shockingly different game than the Panthers would have the rest of the season, both in terms of offensive success and quarterback empowerment. The Panthers are banking on getting a similar showing this weekend. Here are three keys to make sure that happens.
- Get Maxx Crosby and Christian Wilkins blocked up. Crosby is one of the biggest game wreckers in the league and never comes off the field. The Raiders gave him help in the offseason by signing defensive tackle Christian Wilkins. The Panthers used the offseason to bolster their offensive line with pretty good success so far. They’ll need to keep up the strong play to keep Wilkins at bay. On the outside, the offensive staff and Andy Dalton need to be prepared to have help ready on whatever side Crosby is lined up on. He’s the only Raider that has a sack, so limiting him should take the sting out of the Raiders pass rush. On the other side, they have Janarius Robinson and former Panthers great K’Lavon Chaisson.
- Unleash the aerial attack. We watched the offense turtle up in record time over the course of the first two weeks of the season. By the second half of the Week 2 game against the Chargers, Bryce Young had been relegated to taking snaps and immediately throwing to check downs underneath, regardless of down and distance. A similar thing happened last season. After Young averaged 3.8 and 4.6 yards in Weeks 1 and 2, Dalton came out and threw the ball significantly more often for 6.2 yards per attempt. Young has been even worse and trended in the opposite direction this season. With an experienced and accomplished quarterback in the fold, the Panthers passing offense should present more of a threat down the field.
- Help Dalton with a good ground attack. The Raiders have been very vulnerable on on the ground in the first two weeks of the season. JK Dobbins averaged 13.5 yards per carry in Week 1 as the Chargers as a team averaged 6.5 yards per carry. The Ravens had similar success in Week 2 by averaging 5.6 yards per carry. Chuba Hubbard looked good with his limited carries against the Chargers. If the Panthers can stay in the game, they should be able to use the run game to stay on schedule and pick up first downs.