It's a new feeling around the Charlotte area. Still, the Carolina Panthers enter Week 10 with momentum following a stunning upset on the road against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
Now, returning home to face a struggling division rival in the New Orleans Saints, the Panthers have a chance to stack back-to-back wins for the second time this season.
And if there’s one player who can completely flip this matchup on its head, it’s defensive lineman Derrick Brown, one of the league’s most quietly dominant interior forces.
Carolina Panthers can count on complete trench dominance with Derrick Brown
While the Saints continue to search for answers along the offensive line, the Panthers’ 2020 first-round pick has been a consistent, punishing presence up front. New Orleans’ latest shuffle leaves Dillon Radunz likely starting at left guard after the trade of Trevor Penning. This move signals just how unstable things have become for the Carolina's bitter NFC South adversary up front.
Penning, once a first-round pick out of Northern Iowa, failed to find a footing at either tackle or guard spot before being dealt to the Los Angeles Chargers. That experiment’s over, but his departure has created yet another soft spot inside for opposing defenses to exploit.
That’s where Brown comes in.
Through nine games, Brown has continued to display everything that made him a top-10 pick years ago — leverage, strength, and elite lateral quickness for a man of his stature. His ability to collapse the pocket doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet, but it changes everything for opposing quarterbacks.
When he gets downhill and controls the A-gap, the entire rhythm of an offense evaporates. For a Saints team that’s rotated through multiple quarterbacks already this season, that kind of disruption could spell disaster.
For the Panthers, this week has all the makings of a trap game — an emotional high coming off an upset, facing a divisional opponent that’s reeling and desperate. But the easiest way to make sure there’s no letdown is to dominate the line of scrimmage.
That starts and ends with Brown.
If he controls the interior and forces the Saints offense off schedule, Carolina not only has an inside track to create some real momentum, but to a win that could start a feeling in the locker room that the playoffs may be on the horizon.