What to expect from the Panthers offense without Christian McCaffrey

The Carolina Panthers running game

• Mike Davis, Trenton Cannon, Alex Armah

The Carolina Panthers offense revolves around Christian McCaffrey. He forces the defense to stop the run and that opens up the passing game. He is the best receiving back in the NFL and was the biggest influence on the field.

Now McCaffrey is out for multiple weeks and that leaves Mike Davis and Trenton Cannon as the primary running backs for the next several weeks.

Last week when McCaffrey went down late in the game, Davis came in and was great in the passing game. He will have to do more this week and will have to establish the run game for the Panthers in addition to making a difference in passing situations.

Davis is good at running between the tackles and is not a bad player by any means. He will have a heavy workload for the next several weeks and needs to take some of the pressure off Teddy Bridgewater.

Expect to see a lot of outside runs with pulling guards and plenty of straight up the gut on first downs and in short-yardage situations. The Chargers have great run stoppers in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram so the Panthers will try many different things to try and beat them.

Alex Armah may come in and handle those short-yardage situations. His main job this week will be to help create holes for Davis and be his lead blocker often.

Cannon was picked up before the season and hasn’t seen any action yet. He may get some carries this week with the lack of running backs and he does possess enough breakaway speed to surprise some people.

Overall the run game will have to be as impactful as when McCaffrey was in the lineup. Defenses won’t be keying on Davis early so he needs to produce to keep them honest throughout the game.