With 20 receptions in the first two games we were already

talking about running back Christian McCaffrey chances of breaking some kind of receptions record in 2018. The Bengals defensive coordinator certainly had to make it a focus of the defensive game plan; protect the edges and the flat in response to the Panthers’ propensity to run or pass to McCaffrey in those directions.New Panthers offensive coordinator Norv Turner made all that planning for naught. Instead Turner ran McCaffrey between the tackles to the tune of 184 yards on 28 carries Custom Donte Jackson Jersey , a whopping 6.6 yards per carry. If you were like me, as the game wore on in the second half you probably thought “well now Newton will start to throw to McCaffrey in the flat”. Nope, it never happened. McCaffrey only caught two passes for 10 yards on the day, a huge departure from what the Panthers offense did in Weeks 1 and 2. The result of this effort is the Panthers lead the NFL in averaging 166 yards per game. That is Ron Rivera football right there.Let me throw some additional credit where it’s due. The patchwork offensive line did a great job of run blocking in this game. Also huge props to McCaffrey for his tough, tackle-breaking running. I read somewhere he averaged almost three additional yards after contact and had eight or 10 broken tackles. Can we please now stop with the ‘McCaffrey can’t run between the tackles’ narrative? He blew that up this past Sunday.On a related note here’s a graphic on McCaffrey’s directional success:Another reason I find the game plan genius is it took the pressure off the aforementioned patchwork line. With three starters out of the game the Panthers needed to avoid forcing Newton to stand in the pocket and win the game with his arm. Running the ball between the tackles did just that. The fact Newton was under a lot of pressure when he dropped back to pass supports this notion. Here are the PFF grades for the Panthers’ three fill-in starters on the offensive line:I should add that right tackle Taylor Moton was the Panthers’ top graded player on offense and even made the All Offense Team for PFF this week. I imagine Turner looked at this group of fill-ins and realized we had to run the ball in order to win this game. That turned out to be an advantage since it was the opposite of the Panthers’ film from the first two games. Advantage Panthers.I could get used to this whole ‘out game planning the competition’ stuff. Graham Gano is one of the most polarizing players on the team, which is extremely rare for a kicker, but then again, you’re only as good as your last made great kick."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Keep Sounding PodcastPanthers 2019 NFL DraftCSR Film RoomGraham Gano is an average kicker at a high priceNew,18commentsGraham Gano is one of the most polarizing players on the team, which is extremely rare for a kicker, but then again Donte Jackson Jersey Discount , you’re only as good as your last made great kick.ESTShareTweetShareShareGraham Gano is an average kicker at a high priceBob Donnan-USA TODAY SportsThe kicker position is historically one of those spots where you’re consistently evaluated on your most recent kick, whether that be a game winner, or one that didn’t help the team’s cause. We saw a little bit of both from Graham Gano this season. At one point, he nailed an extremely improbable 63-yard field goal to steal an early season victory against the New York Giants in what might have been his best career highlight.But then you flip the coin over and you see three missed extra points, one of which was the difference between winning, or at least tying, a game against the Detroit Lions. That was the game where Ron Rivera elected to go for a game sealing two point conversion instead of kicking the extra point to send it to overtime — in my book, that was a bad decision even with a kicker having a bad day. But, there’s no decision to be made at all if you’re already 20-20, or 22-20, or 23-20 because your kicker didn’t miss an extra point Donte Jackson Jersey Super Bowl , and a field goal, earlier in the game. He also missed a field goal that would have likely won the game over the Seattle Seahawks, but that was a 52-yard try, not something I’m going to begrudge a kicker.All said and done, prior to an injury that ended his season early in week 13, Gano attempted only 16 field goals in total, missing two of them, giving him an 88% average on a fairly small sample size. That puts him squarely in the middle of the pack league-wide amongst kickers with at least 10 attempts. However, his 91% extra point percentage is bottom five in the entire league.That’s a below average season, especially following 2017 where he also just missed one field goal, but kicked 29 of them... enough for him to get a significant contract from the team. One that many Panthers fans Donte Jackson Jersey For Sale , myself included, will always begrudge general manager Marty Hurney for handing out. It’s a topic we have already discussed at length, so I won’t dive super deep into it, but even a blind and deaf mule pulling a cart with a busted axle through Times Square would have been aware enough to see that Harrison Butker had a good enough preseason in 2017 to cut bait with Graham Gano and his large salary cap hit.To just make that spot even sorer, Harrison Butker had a much better season than Gano this past year. While he was comparable on his field goal percentage at 89%, he was miles better kicking extra points, converting 94% of his 69 (!) (Nice) attempts. That’s about the league average, and he does it in a much harder weather environment on the average than Gano does. But what really gets everyone fired up, is that he did this for a whopping $555,000 cap hit. Had we retained him on his rookie deal, our cap hit would have been the same as theirs Donte Jackson Jersey On Sale , and we’d have him for another two years at a crazy low rate. Gano’s cap hit in 2018 was $3.4 million. It was, and still is, just a hilariously bad business decision by the team and reflects the fears many had about bringing back Hurney in the first place. Even if you think his 2017 preseason was a false flag, you should have still taken that risk the moment you look at your cap chart and assess the situation.So, to wit, he we are with a perfectly fine kicker but at a price that shouldn’t be as high as it is. It’s the real world equivalent of paying $5 or more inside the stadium for a bottle of water that a guy standing outside sells for a buck. It’s the NFL equivalent of being low on your daily nutrient counts, and knowing you could’ve had a V8. We’ll always and forever compare what could have been to what is. The best we can do is hope that 2019 will be more like 2017 for Gano than 2018 was.