Carolina Panthers outside linebacker Yetur Gross-Matos came into 2023, a very crucial campaign for his NFL career, prepared to take on more responsibility. And so far, it’s showed.
The fourth-year defender has been one of the few bright spots for a struggling Panthers squad this season. Defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero spoke about the growth and early results of Gross-Matos on Thursday.
“Yeah, I just think he’s been committed since Day One,” Evero said. “Since we’ve been with him, it’s been about his work, playin’ on the edge, playin’ inside. He knew he was gonna have multiple roles to do that in. And he’s been committed to bein’ better.
“And I know he’s doing it in every phase of his life—in the classroom, in the weight room, on the field, obviously. And I’ve just seen a great commitment from the young man from since Day One to be the best version of himself. And now he’s seein’ the fruits of that labor.”
The fruits have him tasting on 2.5 sacks, four quarterback hits and three tackles for a loss through just four games. If the 25-year-old keeps on his current pace, he’s set to shatter his career-bests in each of those aforementioned categories—which stand at 3.5 sacks, 10 quarterback hits and five tackles for a loss.
Evero was then asked if he envisions even more playing time for Gross-Matos moving forward.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” he replied. “And he earned those snaps even before we started playin’ games, to be honest with you. He did a great job in training camp and he was ready to go. And, as you know, the flow the game in that first game was like—we didn’t really play a lot of snaps on defense. And just some of the personnel groups that we were workin’, didn’t work out that way.
“But the intention was to play him in that first game. But you can see now that the last three games is kinda what we wanna de defensively in terms of substitution pattern there.”
After that strange Week 1, where he saw just four defensive snaps, Gross-Matos has seen the majority of looks every game out. He played in 54.5 percent of the snaps in Week 2, 56 percent of the snaps in Week 3 and 68.8 percent of the snaps in Week 4.
So, Evero and the Panthers will seemingly continue to let Yetur eat.
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