5 key matchups to watch during the Panthers at Falcons in Week 8
By Noah Bryce
Tommy Tremble – Carolina Panthers TE vs. Falcons zone defense
I’ve talked about similar matchups in the past. But the Carolina Panthers have never been able to capitalize on them, so here we are again talking about zone defense.
The Panthers have everything that they need to beat a soft zone, at least on paper. D.J. Moore has shown that all year with his elite stat lines, but the rest of the team hasn’t been so productive.
Robby Anderson’s struggles have been spoken about at length and so I will keep it simple. The wideout needs to play up to his contract.
Something that hasn’t been talked about much is the afterthought that Tommy Tremble has become when you take away a couple of highlight-worthy plays.
The team certainly had confidence in the rookie tight end since they shipped off starter Dan Arnold to the Jacksonville Jaguars in exchange for cornerback C.J. Hendersen, but Tremble hasn’t exactly made a strong case to be the option of the future as of yet.
Tight ends are no longer an extra lineman that catches a ball every now and then. Receiving is rapidly becoming the focus of their position, and they are zone killers because no one remembers to cover them.
Even when they do it’s usually a linebacker.
Tremble needs to learn how to leak out into the seams of those soft zones and give Sam Darnold that safety net he has missed since Christian McCaffrey went down in Week 3.
The Panthers don’t need the first-year player to do anything crazy, they just need him to get four or five yards every now and then to keep the defense honest.
With the size of the shadow that Moore casts on the outside, it should be relatively easy for Tremble to get lost for just long enough to get a catch. But for some reason, it just hasn’t happened yet.
The Atlanta Falcons will provide a prime opportunity for Tremble to start proving his doubters wrong. If Darnold is to have any chance of salvaging his tenure in Carolina, the rookie has to be his safety net.