3 Carolina Panthers players that must be benched immediatley after Week 5 loss
By Dean Jones
DeShawn Williams - Carolina Panthers DL
Hopes were high surrounding DeShawn Williams once the Carolina Panthers secured his services in free agency. His experience and development under defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero with the Denver Broncos resulted in a career year for the player in 2022, so fans were expecting a similar output despite being in a different environment.
Williams is a feel-good story and was clearly relishing the chance to play closer to home. However, not every fairytale works out the way you hoped - something the Panthers and the defensive lineman are finding out to their cost through the first five weeks of the campaign.
There is just something missing where Williams is concerned. He's not generating any sort of push off the line of scrimmage and is often overwhelmed, although not having a genuine nost tackle alongside him is clearly complicating matters.
The former Clemson star's 49.1 grade from Pro Football Focus up to now is a fair reflection of his performance levels to date. While the Panthers aren't blessed with great depth across their defensive line, it might be worth getting a closer look at someone like Nick Thurman or LaBryan Ray to see if they could potentially bring more urgency.
Again, it's not like things could get any worse. Carolina's run defense is an absolute abomination right now, which all starts up front and aside from Derrick Brown, it hasn't been good enough.