Christopher Beck

EPIC FAIL: Jake Not The Only Panther To Blame

Posted on 11. Jan, 2009 by Chris in Football Rants

Last night, I witnessed one of the worst exhibitions of football I have ever seen from an NFL Playoff team. Thanks in part to Jake Delhomme’s 6 turnovers, the Panthers were throttled by the Arizona Cardinals on their home turf. To make matters worse, Carolina was previously undefeated at home, both this season and in its scant playoff history. Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Cards had not won a game all year when traveling to the East coast. Lovely.

In today’s Charlotte Disturber, er, Observer, a lot of the blame was laid squarely on the shoulders of Jake the Snake. And while I agree that five interceptions and a fumble all in the same game is for the most part indefensible, Jake is not the reason we lost this game. There, I said it. It is not all his fault.

Without further ado, I give you…

The Top 5 Reasons Carolina Got Smacked

5) Carolina’s Secondary Not Good At Where’s Waldo?
4) Jake’s Arm Not Rebuilt By Steve Austin’s Medical Team
3) Josh McCown Couldn’t Make It In Detroit or Oakland
2) Mike Trgovac Is A Slow Learner

… and the number 1 reason the Cardinals hammered the Panthers …

1) Jeff Davidson Missed the Pre-game Highlight Reel for “Double Trouble.”

Huh, You say? Reaching a little bit? Perhaps. Read on and see what I mean.

5) Carolina’s Secondary Not Good At Where’s Waldo?

This just in, Larry Fitzgerald is really, really good. If I were facing the Cardinals, I would pay extra attention to him. Oh, and by the way, Anquan Bouldin is out, so the only offensive threat we really need to worry about is… Larry Fitzgerald. Right? Right.

Now, how come that message was not relayed to the Panthers’ secondary on Saturday night? Every time Arizona snapped the ball, Larry got open. I watched in absolute horror from the Beck suite in seats 5 and 6 of section 501, row 18 (right below the scoreboard and higher up than most of the skyscrapers in town) as time and again Larry Fitzgerald was running free in the secondary. It didn’t matter where he lined up. No one, and I repeat no one could stay with him. As a matter of fact, no two someones were staying with him.

Was he wearing his cloak of invisibility out there or something? I was able to see him. My wife saw him. Judging by the number of fans screaming “he’s open!” I would say the people around me saw him. And that’s saying something, because most of them were drunk.

But for whatever reason, Ken Lucas, Chris Gamble, Richard Marshall, Chris Harris and Charles Godfrey could not see him. How can you miss him? He’s 6′3″, 220 lbs., and has the thickest dreadlocks I have ever seen. But miss him they did. And for that, they got torched. By the second quarter, #11 had 6 catches for 156 yards. If it wasn’t for the fact that Arizona just ran the ball in the second half to run down the clock, he probably would have had 300 yards.

4) Jake’s Arm Not Rebuilt By Steve Austin’s Medical Team

Over the last few weeks, it appears that Jake Delhomme has not been putting up the kind of numbers we were accustomed to seeing from him. One reason? His arm is not bionic. He had his elbow completely REBUILT last year. Now, my mom just had her hip replaced. She is getting around fine, thanks for asking. But I don’t expect her to resume her career on the pro beach volleyball circuit, even if she could play.

I could be way off on this, and only Jake knows for sure, but it looked to me like his passes had lost a little zip over the last few weeks. Perhaps that is one reason he threw so many picks on Saturday. Maybe old Jake would have been able to get some of those passes in there. But new Jake? Sorry, no soup for you.

3) Josh McCown Couldn’t Make It In Detroit or Oakland

No disrespect to Mr. McCown, but Josh is not going to lead this, or any other team to the Super Bowl. One reason I believe that Jake was not benched after his third, or fourth, or even fifth interception is because Carolina just had no other viable option. Finding a suitable backup that can come in if Jake is injured or struggling should be a primary focus in the offseason.

2) Mike Trgovac Is A Slow Learner

Since Mike Trgovac took over as Defensive Coordinator when Jack Del Rio went to Jacksonville, Carolina’s defense has been, how shall we say this, not good. Here are a few things that REALLY bother me about the defense with Trgo calling the plays:

• He insists on sending only four down linemen on most plays, even though we get sacks primarily when we blitz
• He refuses to attempt to take away the opponent’s best weapon, even when that player is killing us (see Derrick Ward’s 200 yards rushing or Larry Fitzgerald’s 156 first half yards as evidence to support my point)
• He works from the sidelines. How the heck can you see what is going on from down there?

I know these seem like knit-picks, especially the sideline thing, but here is something that is not: our defense has under-achieved every season in his tenure. All of that talent, and nothing to show for it. It’s time for a change. After the number of times the D got abused this season alone, we should seriously look for a new Defensive Coordinator. Preferably, an aggressive, blitz-happy guy from the Dick Lebeau school of Defensive Gurus.

1) Jeff Davidson Missed the Pre-game Highlight Reel for “Double Trouble.”

Right before game time, they played a video montage on the Jumbotron of all 30, that’s right 30, of Deangelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart’s touchdowns. I wish they had piped that feed into the locker room. Perhaps then Jeff Davidson would have remembered that they were on the team so he could have adjusted his game plan and let the Panthers RUN THE DAMN BALL.

Williams and Stewart are called double-trouble for a reason; they are dangerous to opposing defenses. On the opening drive, Deangelo broke one for 30 yards. Jonathan followed that run with a 10 yard scamper to the endzone. Then, they stopped running. I don’t know why they stopped running, but perhaps Mr. Davidson was trying to be tricky.

A little later, with the Cardiac Cats giving everyone in the stands a coronary, the coaches felt we were too far behind to run. Now, for most teams, I would say trailing 27 - 7 is not the best time to unleash the ground game. But considering the fact that our QB was getting intercepted every time he even looked at Steve Smith, running was the only thing we could count on. And running the ball does not mean slowing down the game for Carolina. We practically led the league in long touchdown runs. Both Stewart and Williams were candidates to take any handoff, or even screen pass for that matter, to the house.

So Jeff, I am not suggesting Coach Fox can you, like he needs to do to Trgovac, but you definitely should be put in timeout or something.

There you have it. My top five reasons we stunk it up last night. Do you have any to add to our little list? I would LOVE to hear them!

Tags: cardinals, football, nfl, Panthers, playoffs