BY Cory Spiers
coryspiers@gmail.com
Pro Football Focus (a great site for all the things NFL statistical nerds love) has released their Week 3 grades for the Panthers and Saints.
There are some really nice things to dive into on this list, so I'll help you digest some of the highlights and what they mean for the 2-1 Panthers.
The Week 3 grades are worth noting, but so are the early 2017 player rankings. While numbers and statistics aren't everything (after all, former head coach John Fox would sometimes say stats were for losers), you'll love this stuff, so let's go with no further ado.
Top five grades:
If I told you three of Carolina's top five graded players from Sunday's loss were offensive linemen, would you believe me?
Well, that's the reality. Cam Newton was sacked four times but guards Trai Turner and Andrew Norwell as well as center Tyler Larsen all clock in with 80 ratings or better from PFF.
Norwell was Carolina's top-rated player with an 85.1 grade while Turner clocked in second on the team with an 84 grade and Larsen slipped into fourth with an 80.
What does this tell us? Well, on a day where Carolina's offensive line looked too awful to have three players rated that highly, it suggests that problems don't lie with the guards and center, but rather with the tackles.
Shocking? Hardly.
The $55 million tackle Matt Kalil and third-year man Daryl Williams have been deplorable.
Kalil's grade from PFF through three weeks is 37.5-- which ranks him as the 63rd tackle in the league. Worth $55 million? You tell me.
Williams actually hasn't been as bad as I thought. His 69.7 grade for the season ranks him 27th in the league among his peers-- still not ideal for a starting tackle.
The numbers also tell us Turner is having a great year and is undoubtedly the best part of Carolina's line right now. The former third-round pick's 83.8 rating makes him the 7th best guard in the NFL through three weeks.
Linebacker Luke Kuechly (80.4) and rookie back Christian McCaffrey (79.1) round out Carolina's top five grades.
Kuechly dropped an interception he makes 99 times out of 100 in the second half but finished with eight tackles. McCaffrey had the first 100-yard game of his young career by finishing with nine receptions for 101 yards.
PFF says McCaffrey amassed 66 of his yards after the catch. His season yards per route run average is at 2.16, which ranks first among qualified running backs, they add.
Bad Cam
I wrote yesterday that Cam Newton channeled his inner Jake Delhomme in a three interception performance against New Orleans.
Just like Delhomme would sometimes be dubbed "bad Jake" after a brutal performance, I think it's fitting we crown Newton "bad Cam" after this one and PFF backs it up.
Newton finished with a 40.9 grade from PFF and a 43.8 quarterback rating.
All three of Newton's interceptions came while under no pressure, according to PFF. One interception bounced off the hands of McCaffrey but the other two were clean picks.
Through three games, Newton is completing passes at a higher clip than last season (61.4 percent this season and 52.9 percent last season) but he has thrown four interceptions compared to two touchdowns and thus holds a 69.7 passer rating and a total quarterback rating of 29, which are both on pace to be the worst marks of his career by a large margin.
Newton's PFF grade in 2017 is a 50.4 which ranks him 32nd in the NFL among his peers. Dead last. Absolute bottom of the barrel.
Newton advised fans to be patient in his post game press conference after the ugly 34-13 loss.
Patience is one thing but fans can read the numbers for their starting, franchise quarterback, and right now, the numbers don't look good.
Bradberry the lock-down corner?
Remember when the rhetoric during the summer was how good corner back James Bradberry was looking in his second camp with the Panthers?
Many predicted a breakout year for the former Samford defensive back. The consensus was he was ready to make Panthers fans forget the "other No. 24" who used to patrol the Carolina secondary.
So far, so not good.
PFF gives Bradberry a 40 grade for Sunday's performance. He gave up a pair of catches for 56 yards and was burned by former Panther Ted Ginn Jr. on a 40-yard touchdown that all but sealed the game.
Bradberry also missed two tackles.
Bradberry's season grade from PFF is a 71.8, which ranks him 50th among league corner backs.
Just so we're talking about the same guy, this is the one who was supposed to anchor our secondary moving forward, right?
Trouble is a-brewing if your premiere corner is posting numbers like these.
coryspiers@gmail.com
Pro Football Focus (a great site for all the things NFL statistical nerds love) has released their Week 3 grades for the Panthers and Saints.
There are some really nice things to dive into on this list, so I'll help you digest some of the highlights and what they mean for the 2-1 Panthers.
The Week 3 grades are worth noting, but so are the early 2017 player rankings. While numbers and statistics aren't everything (after all, former head coach John Fox would sometimes say stats were for losers), you'll love this stuff, so let's go with no further ado.
Top five grades:
If I told you three of Carolina's top five graded players from Sunday's loss were offensive linemen, would you believe me?
Well, that's the reality. Cam Newton was sacked four times but guards Trai Turner and Andrew Norwell as well as center Tyler Larsen all clock in with 80 ratings or better from PFF.
Norwell was Carolina's top-rated player with an 85.1 grade while Turner clocked in second on the team with an 84 grade and Larsen slipped into fourth with an 80.
What does this tell us? Well, on a day where Carolina's offensive line looked too awful to have three players rated that highly, it suggests that problems don't lie with the guards and center, but rather with the tackles.
Shocking? Hardly.
The $55 million tackle Matt Kalil and third-year man Daryl Williams have been deplorable.
Kalil's grade from PFF through three weeks is 37.5-- which ranks him as the 63rd tackle in the league. Worth $55 million? You tell me.
Williams actually hasn't been as bad as I thought. His 69.7 grade for the season ranks him 27th in the league among his peers-- still not ideal for a starting tackle.
The numbers also tell us Turner is having a great year and is undoubtedly the best part of Carolina's line right now. The former third-round pick's 83.8 rating makes him the 7th best guard in the NFL through three weeks.
Linebacker Luke Kuechly (80.4) and rookie back Christian McCaffrey (79.1) round out Carolina's top five grades.
Kuechly dropped an interception he makes 99 times out of 100 in the second half but finished with eight tackles. McCaffrey had the first 100-yard game of his young career by finishing with nine receptions for 101 yards.
PFF says McCaffrey amassed 66 of his yards after the catch. His season yards per route run average is at 2.16, which ranks first among qualified running backs, they add.
Bad Cam
I wrote yesterday that Cam Newton channeled his inner Jake Delhomme in a three interception performance against New Orleans.
Just like Delhomme would sometimes be dubbed "bad Jake" after a brutal performance, I think it's fitting we crown Newton "bad Cam" after this one and PFF backs it up.
Newton finished with a 40.9 grade from PFF and a 43.8 quarterback rating.
All three of Newton's interceptions came while under no pressure, according to PFF. One interception bounced off the hands of McCaffrey but the other two were clean picks.
Through three games, Newton is completing passes at a higher clip than last season (61.4 percent this season and 52.9 percent last season) but he has thrown four interceptions compared to two touchdowns and thus holds a 69.7 passer rating and a total quarterback rating of 29, which are both on pace to be the worst marks of his career by a large margin.
Newton's PFF grade in 2017 is a 50.4 which ranks him 32nd in the NFL among his peers. Dead last. Absolute bottom of the barrel.
Newton advised fans to be patient in his post game press conference after the ugly 34-13 loss.
Patience is one thing but fans can read the numbers for their starting, franchise quarterback, and right now, the numbers don't look good.
Bradberry the lock-down corner?
Remember when the rhetoric during the summer was how good corner back James Bradberry was looking in his second camp with the Panthers?
Many predicted a breakout year for the former Samford defensive back. The consensus was he was ready to make Panthers fans forget the "other No. 24" who used to patrol the Carolina secondary.
So far, so not good.
PFF gives Bradberry a 40 grade for Sunday's performance. He gave up a pair of catches for 56 yards and was burned by former Panther Ted Ginn Jr. on a 40-yard touchdown that all but sealed the game.
Bradberry also missed two tackles.
Bradberry's season grade from PFF is a 71.8, which ranks him 50th among league corner backs.
Just so we're talking about the same guy, this is the one who was supposed to anchor our secondary moving forward, right?
Trouble is a-brewing if your premiere corner is posting numbers like these.
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