However, the Carolina Panthers have a slightly different scenario to put the pistol into play.

With two power backs in Mike Tolbert and Stewart, as well as speed backs with Williams and the new addition Barner, the Panthers could load this pistol with extra black powder and blow defenses away.

A 250 lb QB also helps to keep the issue of injury away. While RG3 is a more agile mobile passer; Cam has the ability to take a larger hit without getting too banged up for the next play.

A pistol offense with a four man backfield could make a defensive coordinator rip his hair out trying to figure out where the ball is going. This would increase the chances of a Lombardi trophy sitting in the Panthers hallway, rather than another lackluster year.

The pistol is far from an every down scheme, simply because the running-backs tend to get banged up with that extra half second the defense has to react. The ends justify the means if the scheme leads to big plays and TDs, buy some more icy hot for those HBs.

The Carolina Panthers by all means should be based on a run first, pass second scheme; although Cam Newton should stay in the pocket until forced out. Those designed runs couldn’t fool a child.

Surprise is what leads a team to victory, considering most defenses can make reads on teams based on what their own team has run. The pistol has been studied little and if a play-action starts to fail, the QB has more time to react and get the ball off. This could be Cam’s saving grace considering his tendency to hold the ball to long.

I can see Mike Tolbert taking an inside run now and having just enough momentum to run over the big DT. Force equals mass times acceleration and Tolbert is a lot of acceleration with a ton of mass. Very few, if any, defensive backs in the league could take Tolbert head on.

The genius about the pistol offense is the ability to be more creative with plays. Cam won a National Championship at Auburn with plenty of trick plays; put the players out there and run some good old fashioned school yard football!

Joe Namath won a Super Bowl off being flashy and backing it up. Imagine the dynasty possible if a whole team was flashy and could back it up, Carolina could have several Lombardi trophies displayed in the lockeroom and hallways.

Let’s be honest, the Carolina Panthers are looking for an offensive niche; and this pistol offense may just lead to a Super Bowl. Nobody can deny that players like Steve Smith would look so much better with a rock on their finger.

For instance, the KC Chiefs will likely have a West Coast offense with lots of short passing with some jitterbug runs from Jamaal Charles or him catching swing passes from Alex Smith. The Miami Dolphins look to be a more wide-open offense with young gun Ryan Tannehill now surrounded by some powerful weapons at the WR and TE positions – not to mention their defensive overhaul.

The 2013 iteration of the Carolina Panthers looks a lot like many teams from the 1970′s. Speaking of the Miami Dolphins, recall a young Don Shula taking the expansion Miami Dolphins to relevance with an unselfish team-first, “no-name” defense, a slick and thus aptly-named QB in Bob Griese, and a 3-headed hydra backfield with Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris. Don’t forget one of my all-time favorite players, Hall of Fame wideout Paul Warfield. One year, he had only 29 receptions for the heavily-grounded offense, but 11 of those went the distance.

Not to bad when 1 catch out of 3 means 6 (points)!

In their 1972 perfect season, what’s usually lost in the hype was that they were #1 in offense AND defense in the NFL. OUCH.

Dec 30, 2012; New Orleans, LA, USA; Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams (34) carries the ball up the field against the New Orleans Saints during first quarter of their game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

While I make no such grandiose predictions of the same for this year’s Carolina Panthers, I DO see some similarities.

Mainly, I see a team with one dangerous WR, Steve Smith, and a lot of role-players otherwise on the offense.

The Dolphins had a TE named Marlin Briscoe. The Panthers have a similar-type player in TE Greg Olson.

The offensive backfield is similar. Shula had Csonka; Rivera has Jonathan Stewart. Shula had Jim Kiick – sort of a jack-of-all-trades – and the Panthers have Mike Tolbert. Shula’s most electrifying player was a speedster with a great nickname….Eugene “Mercury” Morris. Rivera now has 2 of those – DeAngelo Williams and 6th-round draft pick, the rookie from Oregon, Kenjon Barner.

Neither of them have cool nicknames, but hey, it’s the play on the field I’m comparing.

With limited help in the passing game, the Panthers have another threat that the Dolphins really didn’t have – a true dual-threat QB. Bob Griese was slippery and could scramble but was a physically small man, even for the times, and wasn’t about to take many hits. Cam Newton is much, much more dynamic.

When Ron Rivera took the team over, the Panthers were already built very much like a power running team. They just lacked the defense against the run to fully exploit it.

Now, with two strong young and talented defensive tackles, the Panthers’ 2012 “soft, gushy center” of the defense won’t be so soft in 2013. Luke Kuechly led the NFL in tackles and has already made his presence known, but now he’s got some help in front of him so he might not make quite as many tackles, frankly….the hopes are the defense won’t be on the field so much this year.

That’s exactly where a power running game helps – it keeps opposing QBs like, oh, say…Drew Brees and Matt Ryan on the bench where they can’t hurt you. If the Panthers can dictate the pace of a ball game, they are going to have a very good shot to win.

If everyone on the offensive line is healthy, it should be one of the better overall units in the NFL – Byron Bell or not. Bell’s a better run-blocker than he is a pass protector so a running offense would benefit him as well.

Also if you’ll recall the first two games last year – the Panthers ran 2-to-1 vs. passing and won that game against the Saints. The other? They passed 2-to-1 vs. running (season opener @ Tampa Bay) and lost. Those first two games should have set the tone for the offensive play-calling the rest of the season, but Chud wasn’t always on top of the running game.

Jan 23, 2013; Mobile AL, USA; Senior Bowl north squad running back Kenjon Barner of Oregon (24) carries against defensive back Jordan Poyer of Oregon State (14) during the Senior Bowl north squad practice at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

If the Panthers decide to go the “ground and pound” route, they could be a force to reckon with. Today’s NFL defenses are built around the pass rush and pass defense, team speed and smaller, faster defenders. These things go in cycles, and we’re at one extreme now more or less because of the liberal rules in the passing game. Fine.

The advantage can go to Carolina when pounding the rock with any of 4 different ball carriers when you include Cam Newton…possibly 5 if Barner is tossed into the mix for a few plays a game early on as he learns the ropes.

The personnel should dictate what you do, not the other way around. You play to your strengths, and I’d say Carolina’s backfield is much stronger than the receiving corps is. They’re also taking up the lion’s share of salary cap space.

USE THEM!

A powerful running game does a number of good things. It runs the clock, shortening the game. It really does make opposing defenses a step slower as the game wears on as the physicality wears them out. It’s no secret it takes twice as much energy to play defense than offense, and when an offense can put together long, slogging drives, the defense gets tired.

A tired defense helps the opposing offense down the stretch as they’re less able to make plays and just get worn down. Also, a lot of defensive backs these days are used to covering and not tackling; tackling is almost a lost art these days, and bringing down a Mike Tolbert is NOT something a 190-lb DB wants to do – or even CAN do in some cases.

As running teams keep running and the game goes on, the gains on the ground tend to get a little bigger. When you have a mix of power sledgehammers and lightning bugs, those fast guys seem to get a little bit faster in the 2nd half…and the Panthers have been known the past 2 years for giving up leads (when they get them) late in the game.

I say it’s worth attempting. A strong running game would make the vertical passing game MORE effective – even if pass attempts are going to be down – as safeties start sneaking towards the line of scrimmage or defensive coordinators start calling “8 in the box” defenses to try and stop/slow down the run. That’s where the play-action deep pass comes in.

With nobody (yet) stepping up in the WR corps, signs point more and more to a 1970′s-style extremely physical offensive style being the direction to go. Smitty has lost at least a step in speed and nobody so far has stepped up to claim the WR2 spot, so they may go with what’s proven.

The Panthers have so much money and talent in the offensive backfield – it’s time they started earning those big paychecks.

To me, the most glaring deficiency was the imbalance in the offensive playcalling. 36 pass plays and 13 running plays.

DeAngelo Williams carried the ball a whopping 6 times for minus-1 yard. Tolbert had two yards on a single carry, but had a nice 20-yard catch.

He wound up with 8 yards receiving for the game with 2 additional receptions…which obviously lost 12 yards.

Those are not just really bad statistics, they’re emblematic of how the day went for the Carolina Panthers’ offense. While Cam had 303 yards on 22/33 for a TD to a wide-freakin’ open Brandon LaFell on a double-clutched pass, he had 2 interceptions. The first one, eh…tipped ball, happens to the best of them. The second one was a forced pass he shouldn’t have attempted. The TD pass aside, all those 280 some-odd yards remaining were all in between the 20′s with 3 points to show for it.

At the risk of earning my own nickname of Captain Obvious, that’s just not an acceptable performance.

September 9, 2012; Tampa, FL, USA; Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams (34) stiff arms Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Aqib Talib (25) in the first quarter Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Some credit for that has to go to the Buccaneers and their defense of course (thanks again, “Captain O”), but the casual fan could even see the playcalling was putting everything on Cam’s shoulders. The Panthers were simply never behind so many points as to need to completely abandon the running game.

13 running plays, half of which were simply the sound of DeAngelo Williams beeping for the -1 yard. One play was a completely foreseeable QB draw that was consequently and completely stuffed on a third and goal in the fourth quarter.

Even *I* saw *that* one coming. C’mon, Chudzinski, you had it right last year…this has gotta be just a blip on the radar…right?

Be the innovator and builder that you are. It’s a perfect set-up for some sort of thievery from the old U of Florida Tim Tebow playbook:

The Jump pass.

Football is actually a mental game. The playcalling could be nicely compared to a chess match between the coaches involved. Everyone knows Cam is a powerful runner, so take the next step. Have a pass off of a fake QB draw. Either the “Jump” pass or some other sort of fake draw could be not only good for the initial 6 points such a wrinkle would get, but also force all the other teams to consider that possibility in their defensive playcalling.

That would, in theory, pay dividends down the road when a real QB draw might actually be called for and more successfully run. Just don’t overdo it, and don’t be predictable.

I’m not calling and screaming for Rob Chudzinski’s head at all. What I am saying is the gameplan on offense was predictable even for someone like me.

Aug 17, 2012; Charlotte, NC, USA Carolina Panthers running back Mike Tolbert (35) runs the ball against the Miami Dolphins during the second quarter at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Brevard-US PRESSWIRE

2nd and 12? Draw play to Tolbert or Williams here and there. Don’t overuse the screen…there were 4 guys “blocking” on one screen and the receiver was clubbed for a massive loss.

The TSA woulda done of better job protecting him than the “blockers” did.

Poor playcalling. Poor excecution, to boot.

You’ve got an All-Pro center, you say? You’ve got a 2nd-round monster with an evergoing motor that you drafted specifically for his prowess at run blocking, you say? You’ve got a 260 pound lead back/running back/receiver that you purchased in the offseason, you say?

I don’t know about the coaches, but if it were me, I’d go out on the field when their very next practice starts and fix it with two words. I’d just point and yell:

HULK, SMASH!