One thing was clear in the Carolina Panthers’ 25-24 preseason victory at Buffalo: They need to get starting defensive tackles Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short healthy.
With Lotulelei (foot) and Short (back) in Charlotte nursing injuries, the Panthers gave up 206 yards rushing, including 14 rushing first downs.
The struggles were so obvious that defensive end Charles Johnson, who stayed home to nurse a sore calf, tweeted this:
We will get better against the run. I'm
— charles johnson (@randywattson) August 15, 2015A defense that in training camp appeared to have picked up where it left off at the end of last season looked like the defense that began last season.
Remember?
The Panthers gave up more than 100 yards rushing in seven of the first nine games of 2014. That included 264 yards against Pittsburgh and 193 against Cincinnati. That led to a 3-5-1 start that ultimately became 3-8-1.
Once Carolina got control of the run defense everything else fell into place.
The Panthers surrendered more than 100 yards rushing only once in the last seven games. They went 4-0 over the final four, giving up an average of 97.5 yards on the ground.
You can’t blame Friday’s performance against the run solely on not having Lotulelei and Short in the four-man rotation with Colin Cole and Dwan Edwards.
Starting linebackers Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis played only six snaps.
And as noted above, Johnson was at home.
But if the Panthers are to be successful defensively when the season begins, they must have Lotulelei and Short. There is no exact timetable for either to return, although Short did practice twice on a limited basis this week.
Lotulelei is to be re-evaluated in a week.
For this defense to be among the top five in the NFL as safety Kurt Coleman recently said was the goal, it begins with stopping the run.
That begins in the middle.
“We’ve got to do a much better job getting off blocks,’’ assistant head coach Steve Wilks said on the Panthers’ postgame radio show. “We were stuck on blocks too much.’’
It wasn’t just the backup tackles. Coach Ron Rivera said he was “disappointed’’ with the defensive ends in the second quarter.
Too many times they lost containment of backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor, who rushed for 47 yards on six carries.
The players were disappointed, too. Linebacker A.J. Klein wrote on Twitter:
Got the win but, Still have a lot of things to improve on. Back to work. #KeepPounding
— AJ Klein (@AJKlein47) August 15, 2015Getting their starting defensive tackles back to work will help.
