5 harsh lessons the Carolina Panthers must learn heading into Week 4 vs. Vikngs

There’s something brewing with Yetur Gross-Matos

Yetur Gross-Matos has been the focal point of many, many Carolina Panthers fans’ angst after his first few seasons in the NFL. A second-round pick out of Penn State, perhaps the expectations were just too hot coming out for the edge rusher all things considered.

In Week 1, it looked like Gross-Matos was securely in the doghouse and didn’t figure to have much impact on this new-look defense, being on the field for four lowly snaps. The player showed up with a sack in Week 2 and his known commodity of solid run defense.

This past week, Gross-Matos did it again. Accumulating another sack to go along with two tackles and another nice showing in run support, there’s some momentum forming here for the often-maligned figure.

Much of the speculation about Gross-Matos’ transition to the outside linebacker position in Ejiro Evero’s defense hasn’t translated to poor showings on the field. In fact, he’s being used in such a myriad of alignments and situations, a lot of that concern isn’t even as relevant.

That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t still be present later, but this Panthers' defensive staff has figured out strengths that they can play to with Gross-Matos. So far, has found himself over the tackle, outside the tackle, and even in the 4-I alignment on the interior of the defensive front in speed packages.

Look for the opportunities to continue rolling in as long as Gross-Matos keeps earning the playing time.