Grading the Panthers in their Week 1 win over the New York Jets

The Carolina Panthers notched a balanced, season-opening 19-14 win over the New York Jets on Sunday afternoon in Bank of America Stadium.

Here’s how each position graded out at first glance.

Passing offense

The shiniest story line coming into the Panthers’ Sunday matchup with the Jets was centered on Sam Darnold — the 24-year-old quarterback the Panthers traded for this offseason who replaced Teddy Bridgewater, who was far from the sole problem on the 5-11 Panthers in 2020.

And he didn’t disappoint.

Darnold completed 24-of-35 passes for 279 yards and a touchdown, and he also rushed for a 5-yard touchdown on a quarterback draw.

Panthers head coach Matt Rhule put the ball in Darnold’s hands early. On the team’s second drive, the Panthers threw three straight dip-and-dunk passes in Jets territory and then punted — a sequence that might’ve confused some Christian McCaffrey jersey-wearing fans on Sunday afternoon.

But Rhule’s faith in Darnold eventually proved correct: On the last two possessions of the first half, he notched a 57-yard touchdown pass to a streaking Robby Anderson (a wide receiver who received a hefty contract extension after his breakout production last year) and then ran one in on a quarterback draw from 5 yards out.

Darnold was protected by an offensive line that, on first watch, managed the Jets’ blitzing schemes well, and he spread out the wealth on Sunday: DJ Moore (eight targets) notched six catches for 80 yards, and McCaffrey (nine targets) had nine catches for 89 yards.

Grade: A

Rushing offense

McCaffrey’s 2021 debut started a bit slowly, but his workload by the end of the second half came close to looking like what it did in 2019.

The team’s star notched 21 carries for 98 yards and nine catches for 89 yards. The team averaged 4.1 yards per carry, a serviceable chunk to help deliver the Panthers their first win in their first game in 2021.

Grade: A-

Passing defense

Don’t sleep on Haason Reddick.

The Carolina linebacker, who for most of Sunday’s game worked out of a two-point stance on the left side of the defensive line, and the rest of the Carolina defense made the debut of Jets rookie quarterback Zach Wilson difficult.

Reddick finished with three tackles and 1.5 sacks, a strong start to his tenure in Carolina after signing a one-year, $6 million deal with the team after a productive 2020 in Arizona. His defense allowed 14 points and 258 passing yards.

Now, was the Panthers’ passing defense perfect? Far from it. On a fourth-and-8 with three minutes left in the game, the Panthers’ secondary allowed a 25-yard completion, which eventually set up a Jets touchdown.

But a failed Jets’ two-point conversion after that score and an unrecovered onside kick secured Carolina the win.

The other primary playmaker on defense was Shaq Thompson, who finished with five tackles, one sack and one interception that set up some Carolina points.

Grade: A-

Rushing defense

On first glance, the Panthers’ rush defense wasn’t super impactful on the game’s final outcome: The Jets threw the ball a ton — 37 throws against just 17 rushing attempts — and only accumulated 45 yards on the ground.

Credit goes to the Panthers’ defensive line, which forced a lot of third-and-long situations and had Wilson, a mobile quarterback, evading tacklers deep in his own backfield.

Grade: A

Special teams

Was it ideal for Ryan Santoso, the successor (for now) to Joey Slye, to miss an extra point? No — particularly when that gave the Jets an opportunity they seized to cut the game to one possession (16-8) when it really should’ve been two.

But was it disastrous? No.

The kicker had a fine day otherwise. He went 2-for-2 on field goals, each from within 30 yards, and he forced five touchbacks.

His special teams unit was bolstered by a solid performance by Joseph Charlton, who notched six punts, two of which landed within the 20-yard line.

Kick and punt returners had a negligible impact on Sunday.

Grade: B

Coaching

No Week 1 contest is a “must-win,” at least in the conventional use of the coaching cliche. But Sunday was close to it for the Panthers.

Rhule and company managed to defeat a Jets team still reeling from its 2-14 2020 season — one with a talented but nonetheless rookie quarterback.

There were still plenty of situations that prompted due head-scratching. Among them: On fourth down from the Jets’ 33, the Panthers elected to punt instead of taking a 50-yard field goal. The play call was met with intermittent boos from the home crowd — many of whom were likely confused why the coaching staff didn’t test out the leg of Slye’s successor (for now) Santoso. (The Panthers, after all, will lose a draft pick in 2022 if Santoso is on the roster for two weeks. Why not test him in Week 1?)

Grade: B

This story was originally published September 12, 2021 at 4:54 PM with the headline "Grading the Panthers in their Week 1 win over the New York Jets."

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.