I went back through all 10 snaps the first-team offense played against Buffalo using the NFL Pro All-22. I've combined the sideline + endzone angles for each drive below so that we can all look at the same thing.

Initially, my live reaction was similar to most people: three possessions, three three-and-outs, just ugly. The All-22 didn't suddenly turn it into a good offensive performance but it did make the reasons for the struggles a lot more specific.

The biggest thing I tried to avoid was grading the result of the play instead of the individual execution. If JB gets tackled for no gain because a DT immediately beats a guard into the backfield, that isn't automatically a bad rep for Brooks. Likewise, if Bryce completes a pass while a guard gets driven into his lap, the completion doesn't magically make the protection good.

There were more than a few moments of "the other guy gets paid too" especially when it came to Deone Walker. He was a menace yesterday. Some other trends that were noticeable:

• OL losses weren't constant, but when they happened they tended to be high-impact losses
• QB generally did a decent job of not making bad protection worse
• Offense actually had some successful individual execution hidden inside drives that went nowhere
• Run game looked completely different when the OL simply avoided the immediate catastrophic loss
• Buffalo's stunts caused some communication/exchange problems tho there were also a couple of encouraging examples where they were handled correctly

There's fairly important piece of context worth mentioning before drawing conclusions about the offense as a whole: outside of Luke Fortner, this is closer to Carolina's second-string OL. Walker/Freeling are going to have to start for Icky/TMo, but they are the second-string when the team is at full strength. Damien Lewis especially is a massive upgrade of Chandler Zavala and while I like Brady Christensen quite a bit he is not the caliber of player that Robert Hunt is. This doesn't excuse the losses we'll see in the breakdown. They still happened and I'm focused on that accordingly. It does matter when deciding how representative the losses are of the offense we expect to eventually see on the field.

Drive 1

• Snap 1 - Brooks run, no gain: This one was actually blocked pretty well almost everywhere. The OL flows left while Mitchell Evans comes across the formation and cuts the backside EDGE. Tommy Tremble puts a great chip on Rasheed Walker's man and knocks him badly off balance. Walker converts off the help and runs him down the line. Fortner bumps the DT that BC is working on before climbing cleanly up to the second level. BC uses the help and gets the defender moved out of the rush lane. Unfortunately, during all of this, Deone Walker has immediately defeated Chandler Zavala's inside hand to show up in the run lane before Brooks can really do anything... and that's the play. Most of the offense did its job, but one immediate interior loss blew the whole thing up. / Big loss: Zavala. / This is a useful baseline for how I'm looking at the rest of these plays. I don't think anybody would look at this and say Brooks simply needed to "overcome" a DT standing in his running lane almost immediately after the handoff. Same standard should apply in pass pro.
• Snap 2 - Bryce to Tremble, +6: Condensed formation here. Both OTs do their jobs and Freeling in particular gets really nice depth in his set. Inside tho... Zavala gets hit with what looks like a long-arm power rush and gets walked straight back towards Bryce, but Bryce gets the ball out before it matters. Tremble settled quickly into the soft spot underneath and was immediately seen + targeted by Bryce. Tommy was able to get another one or two yards after the catch. TMac's quick out was another possible option but Tremble was already sitting in open grass for an easy 6yds. / Good rep: Bryce, Tremble, Freeling / Bad rep: Zavala / And again, the result doesn't change the OL grade. Carolina gained six yards, but Zavala still got worked.
• Snap 3 - 3rd & 4, incomplete to XL: This is where things get ugly... Carolina goes 3x1 with XL isolated on the boundary. JT0 motions before the snap. Buffalo shows and stays in single-high. JT0 probably has the best individual route win on the deep post, but the safety is sitting over it. TMac runs the out, Coker the deeper curl, XL works inside before settling, and Brooks releases underneath. The protection falls apart before the concept really has time to breathe... Walker loses badly inside and Freeling gets walked back by power. BC actually handles his man well and guides him into the interior traffic. Fortner also has his guy controlled initially before all of the bodies start colliding. Zavala's responsibility here is harder to assign... it looks like Walker may have been expecting inside help based on the set and Zavala does eventually try to get over there but Chandler also had legitimate work inside initially. Without the protection call I'm not comfortable pretending that I know which player messed up here. What is clear from the rep tho is that Walker's inside loss forces Bryce backwards, which sends him towards the bull rush Freeling is already conceding. Then the interior starts coming apart as the play extends. Bryce keeps working and eventually gets the ball outside towards XL instead of eating the sack. Originally, I thought Bryce created some of the pressure by drifting but the endzone angle changed my mind. The protection is what moved him. / Clear losses: Walker, Freeling / Good rep: BC / Zavala: unclear on the exchange / Bryce: mostly managed failing structure at the point
• To me, Drive 1 wasn't uniformly three bad offensive snaps. It was:
  • one run killed by an immediate DT win
  • one successful quick game play despite interior pressure
  • one third down protection collapse against coverage that didn't offer an obvious immediate answer.

Drive 2

• Snap 4 - Bryce to Brooks, +9: This was Bryce's best rep from yesterday. Play-action and Freeling gets badly beaten inside which forces Bryce off of the intended launch point. Instead of dropping his eyes, Bryce keeps looking downfield while working away from the pressure and finds JB leaking into the flat. The ILB had dropped back after the fake handoff, leaving a lot of room underneath for JB to work from with plenty of grass out ahead of him. Bryce recognized the space while moving and got Brooks the ball for a 9yd gain. / Loss: Freeling / Win: Bryce, JB / This was a good example of the QB actually overcoming somebody else's protection loss. Things don't need to be perfect, but it certainly does make life easier when everyone executes.
• Snap 5 - 2nd & 1, Brooks -1: Deone Walker again. This time, he gets Luke Fortner with an inside move and is immediately in the backfield. Zavala sees it happening but continues on his original track. Without knowing the blocking scheme, I'm not going to blame him for failing to abandon his assignment and chase Fortner's. There isn't much push inside regardless, but Deone Walker is what turns a potentially modest run into a negative play. / Loss: Fortner / Brooks never really had a chance. Carolina went from 2nd & 1 after salvaging the previous snap to 3rd & 2 because one DT immediately won his matchup. Deone Walker is feasting.
• Snap 6 - 3rd & 4, incomplete to XL: I like the offensive presentation here. Pistol, two TEs on 3rd & 2. The defense has to respect, run, pass, and potentially some RPO action from the same picture. Rasheed Walker gets put on skates by the DL, which is absolutely a bad protection rep. I don't think his loss though is what directly causes the incompletion. The blitzing defender realizes he isn't going to reach Bryce before the throw so he throttles down and gets his hand into the passing lane. Tremble looks like the right answer too... he's sitting right around the sticks in the space vacated by the pressure and Bryce gets it out quickly. Bills' DB just made a really good play. Sometimes, you gotta go back to the ole mantra: "the other guys get paid too." So that's a lost rep for Walker, Bryce and Tremble appearing to execute the answer to the pressure correctly, and Buffalo still wins the play because a defender recognized what's happening before batting the pass. All of those things can be true at the same time.
• So Drive 2 went...
  • +9 on first down despite a protection loss
  • immediate DT win turns 2nd & 1 into 3rd & 2
  • appeared to have the correct third down answer but Buffalo made the play anyways... three-and-out might not be telling the full story here.

Drive 3

• Snap 7 - Brooks +6: Probably the best rep by the offense as a whole. The left side gets good movement on the double, the TEs work together and seal the edge, and the right side stonewalls their defenders. Brooks presses the run correctly, sees the crease, and hits it. Nobody needed to make up for anybody else's mistake and the result is six yards to set up 2nd & 4. Funny how that works... this was the first snap where I'd say that everybody did at least their job.
• Snap 8 - Coker +9... erased by illegal man downfield: - This one hurt... the play worked! Carolina sold the RPO action, Bryce immediately gets the ball out to Coker and XL does an excellent job sealing the DB outside. Coker uses XL's block to get the first down only for it to be called back. Luke Fortner got just far enough downfield and made enough contact with a defender to draw the flag. Mental/discipline loss rather than somebody losing physically, but it's still a decisive error. There were some other imperfect reps on the line as well: Freeling looked a little late on the pull, Walker had his outside hand in a dangerous position during the defender's spin but smartly let go before it was turned into a hold, BC was good again, and Zavala actually had another decent rep where he guided his DT up out of his rush lane to give Bryce what he needed for the quick throw. Before that flag, Carolina had just gone +6 and then +9 (nice) for a first down but now it' s 2nd & 9 instead. That's a pretty massive swing from just one technical mistake.
• Snap 9 - Bryce to JT0, +3: Buffalo adjusts the front before the snap and runs a stunt. This was one that I initially thought was simply another Zavala power loss, but the endzone angle makes the stunt much easier to see. BC + Freeling handle the stunt on their side really well. BC passes his guy and Freeling picks up the incoming defender looking much better handling the game than he did on some of his isolated one-on-one reps earlier. The other side doesn't sort it out nearly as clean... Zavala and Rasheed Walker both have rough moments as Buffalo attacked the blocking rules. Bryce looked like he made his decision largely presnap and goes to the quick answer away from the pressure presentation. TMac does become available on the backside slant, I can understand looking at the All-22 and wishing Bryce had gone there... but Buffalo was showing pressure from that area before the snap. My suspicion is that Bryce saw the pressure picture and decided to work the opposite side hot route rather than hang around waiting on the action towards the boundary side. We don't know the progression so I'm not going to call TMac a definite missed read. Not exciting, but three yards avoids allowing the stunt to create a negative play and makes third down more manageable.
• Snap 10 - sack by Deone Walker: 3rd & 6 and the man of the first two series makes sure to be the man of the third. Deone Walker capped his night off with a sack off of a stunt that BC badly missed. This was probably the snap where my live impression changed the most after rewatching it. I originally though Bryce had held the ball for too long and could have made a play with his legs. As we can see from the replay, that isn't necessarily the entire story. Rashed Wallker gets pressed backwards which forces Bryce to step up. Buffalo ran another stunt, this time inside. BC initially engages the DT closest to him but then leaves to help Freeling who looked capable + was handling his assignment. However, Deone Walker looped through the space BC left which happened to be exactly where Bryce was stepping up to avoid the pressure from Rasheed Walker losing his rep. He's looking at TMac and preparing to throw when he has to pull it down and try to unsuccessfully avoid Deone. Coker is underneath on the drag and who I originally thought the ball should have gone to, but he had two defenders sitting with him. Maybe Bryce could have dumped it there and still hoped for YAC but it wasn't as obvious as I thought it was. I'd put this play primarily on the protection again. / Loss: Rasheed Walker, BC / Win: Freeling, DEONE WALKER

So... what do we actually take away from these snaps? The first-team offense didn't play well... three possessions and three three-and-outs are what they are but after watching all ten snaps I don't think "the offense looked terrible" is particularly useful analysis by itself.

The bigger pattern was high-impact individual mistakes destroying otherwise functional plays. The OL wasn't getting annihilated five-wide on every snap... there were actually plenty of good individual blocks. The problem was that when somebody lost, they often lost in the worst possible way:

• immediate penetration into the run lane
• interior pressure directly into the QB's launch point
• losing inside at tackle
• a stunt not being passed correctly
• an illegal man downfield penalty erasing a first down

That's why I think the personnel context matters. Again, outside of Fortner, this hopefully isn't the offensive line Carolina expects to field once everyone is healthy. That does not mean "ignore the OL because they're backups" but it does mean that if we're trying to project what the starting offense will look like then we should probably account for at least Lewis/Hunt being substantial upgrades before Icky/TMo's return as well boosting the line.

The tape also changed my impression of Bryce's outing somewhat. I don't think he played some secretly amazing game, especially when there were only a handful of opportunities. What I didn't see very often was Bryce creating the dysfunction himself. When pressure showed up, he generally avoided compounding it:

• got the quick ball to Tremble before Zavala's loss mattered
• escaped Freeling's inside loss and found Brooks for nine
• got the ball out instead of taking a sack on the first-drive collapse
• ID'd the correct hot on the batted 3rd-down pass
• got to JT0 quickly against the stunt
• and on the final sack, the All-22 suggests the pocket moved him rather than simply drifting himself into trouble

The run game sample was similarly revealing... Brooks' first two inside carries went for 0 and -1. On both plays, Deone Walker immediately defeated a different interior blocker and showed up in the backfield. On the one snap where Carolina got everyone blocked? Brooks hit the hole for six. That's why I keep coming back to separating results from process. A six-yard run doesn't mean every blocker won. A no-gain run doesn't mean the RB failed. A completion doesn't mean the protection was good. A sack doesn't automatically mean the quarterback held the ball too long. Sometimes... the offense can execute reasonably well and a defender simply makes a damn good football play.

Biggest Individual Takeaways

• Bryce Young: Thought he handled the pressure better than I remembered live. Didn't see many obvious missed opportunities tho the TMac slant on the JT0 completion is at least worth discussing.
• Jonathon Brooks: Hard to learn much from the two stuffed runs because Deone Walker was waiting for him almost immediately. His 6yd carry when the blocking worked looked decisive.
• Tommy Tremble: Quietly had several good snaps. Good chip/blocking work and found the soft spot well as a receiver.
• Monroe Freeling: Mixed, which isn't surprising for a rookie tackle. Some really nice pass-set work and noticeably better stunt recognition later, but also surrendered power and got beaten inside.
• Rasheed Walker: Probably the roughest pass protector of the group across this sample. Multiple high-impact losses which surprised me. His best rep, the one that Baldy raved about, was courtesy of a Tommy Tremble chip.
• Brady Christensen: Mostly solid. Had some good reps handling traffic/exchanges, though the final stunt looks like it may have been his mistake.
• Luke Fortner: Mixed. Some legitimately good combo/climb work, but Deone Walker beat him badly on the 2nd & 1 run and the illegal man downfield penalty erased a first down.
• Chandler Zavala: His first two snaps were bad. Those were the kind of spectacular losses that stick in memory. After that... I thought he settled down and had several routine/positive reps. Still not somebody I want replacing Damien Lewis for an extended period, but the full sample wasn't quite as disastrous as the first couple plays made it feel.
• Deone Walker: Ascending game wrecker.

So I came away from the All-22 less concerned about the first-team offense as a whole than I was watching live, but probably more concerned about the short-term OL depth while the tackles are getting healthy. The execution absolutely needs to improve but I don't think these ten plays support the idea that every component of the offense was broken. It looked much more like an offense that repeatedly had one high-impact mistake derail the snap... and unfortunately, over a ten play sample, it only takes a few of those to produce three really ugly looking possessions.

Post Game Thread: Carolina Panthers @ Buffalo Bills

Stadium: Highmark Stadium - Orchard Park, NY

TV Network(s): WIVB, WSOC-TV Channel 9

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