If it looked like the Carolina Panthers defense was out of its depth against the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday it wasn’t an accident. Not only was the youngest defensive unit the NFL has seen in a decade playing their first live game together ever, issues with the headsets had the defenders in the wrong play several times in the first half.
According to head coach Matt Rhule, Carolina was in the wrong defense 10-12 times early in the game, per Joe Person at the Athletic.
“Rhule counted between 10 and 12 plays in the first half where the Panthers ran a defense that was different from what was called from the sideline. The Raiders had 33 offensive plays before halftime, which means the Panthers were in the wrong defense about a third of the time.”
Knowing that, the fact that they only gave up 17 total points in the first half is pretty impressive.
This may still prove to be the worst defense in the NFL this season. However, there were some positives to build on. Derrick Brown and Jeremy Chinn had promising debuts and Rasul Douglas played well when Donte Jackson went down.
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