5 keys to victory for the Carolina Panthers vs. Eagles in Week 5

Carolina Panthers must make Jalen Hurts win the game with his deep ball

Jalen Hurts is part of a new breed of quarterback that has taken the NFL by storm in recent years. Mobility over accuracy and the need to be a dual-threat.

This is extremely odd when you think about how pass-happy the league is and the fact that accuracy is a rather large part of that being successful, but I digress.

In last week’s game against the Kansas City Chiefs, Hurts showed that wild inconsistency from an accuracy standpoint. There were a couple of beautiful downfield passes to DeVonta Smith, but on the flip side, there were two horrendous passes for incompletions in the end-zone.

With that said, Hurts did record 358 passing yards on only 32 completions which is rather impressive. But can be a bit deceiving as the majority of those yards came after the catch, on short throws, or on blown coverages.

What this means is that the Philadelphia Eagles shouldn’t be very comfortable with Hurts unloading the deep ball repeatedly as downfield throws and suspect accuracy lead to interceptions.

But how do the Carolina Panthers take advantage of this?

Make Hurts win the game with that deep ball.

Take away the short passes that the Eagles thrive on and make the Oklahoma product throw long. Capitalize when the young quarterback makes an errant throw, which he will eventually. Make the team play outside of their comfort zone.

If they connect on a deep ball so be it as that will be a rare occurrence for this team and if you shut down their short game they won’t be able to do anything else anyway.

Last week proved that Hurts dropping back almost 50 times is not a winning strategy for this team. If the Panthers can get them in a pass-first mode early with some scoring of their own it will be a fun day for an opportunistic defense.