The Panthers defense broke out of a 10-game funk in Sunday’s surprise shutout win over the Lions. For the first time all season, the unit operated efficiently at all three levels, limiting Detroit to zero points scored and a pitiful 185 total yards.
The one guy who has set the standard for this young defense all year long is EDGE Brian Burns, who officially needs to be in the conversation for the best playmaker in the league at his position. Burns finally got some luck as a pass rusher against Detroit, earning the first multi-sack game of his NFL career.
Afterwards, Burns was characteristically humble and credited a great game plan for the team’s success. Here’s what he said when he was asked about how he was used differently during the win.
“Like I said, the game plan was great. They had no idea where we were coming from, they didn’t know if I was dropping, covering the slot, covering the back or if I was rushing off the edge or going into the B-gap. We were sending guys from all over the place and they messed up their protection a lot. Like I said, I usually don’t get freebies and they decided not to block me. So me standing off the ball, me moving around and putting me in different areas, along with (Jeremy) Chinn and everybody else, that was just great disguises and great execution by the blitzes.”
Defensive coordinator Phil Snow does deserve a lot of credit for his strategy against Detroit specifically and for giving Burns a larger role in general. He totaled two sacks, two tackles for a loss and four quarterback hits in the win.
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