Sir Purr
Well-known member
- Mar 16, 2019
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Have to limit turnovers
Kansas City is tied for the league's most takeaways with 14 — nine interceptions and five recovered fumbles. The Chiefs have forced at least one turnover in each of their eight games. Plus, they got four against both the Patriots in Week 4 and the Broncos in Week 7.
The Panthers haven't committed a giveaway in half of their games, but they've had nine combined in the other four.
"Ball security is the most important statistic in football, in my opinion," Brady said. "When you look at the wins and losses, a lot of it has to do with protecting the football. And that's our No. 1 job as an offense. When you look at this season, times that we're not taking care of the football, we're losing football games."
In last Thursday's loss to Atlanta and the Week 6 loss to Chicago, Carolina had a chance to at least tie the game on the offense's final drive. But quarterback Teddy Bridgewater threw an interception to end both threats.
The Chiefs have been opportunistic on defense all season. With their explosive offense, the Panthers have to take care of the ball to have a shot at winning.
Can Carolina score enough points?
This is a twofold issue. The Panthers are averaging 22.4 points per game and have scored at least 30 points twice: Week 1 against the Raiders and Week 4 against the Cardinals. The Chiefs' defense is allowing only 19.0 points per game, the third-fewest in the league, and they've allowed more than 20 points just once this season: their Week 5 loss to the Raiders.
On the other hand, the Chiefs score 31.6 points per game and have scored at least 23 points every week.
From the raw numbers, that doesn't bode well for the Panthers. But that's also why they play the games.
One way the Panthers can stem the Chiefs' point total is through red-zone defense. Kansas City enters the second half of the season No. 10 in red-zone offense, scoring touchdowns on 20 of the offense's 31 trips inside the 20.
"In any situation, a field goal's a win until the fourth quarter," head coach Matt Rhule said. "Field goals are takeaways to us. So a field goal is always a win. Conversely, on offense, we've got to score more touchdowns. We've kicked too many field goals, which is good, but it's not great. And what we need is great, and we need to limit great for the other team."
The Panthers' offense is No. 26 in the red zone, getting in the end zone on 14-of-26 chances. But Carolina could use some explosive scoring plays, too.
"We know what the Chiefs are capable of doing, and we don't want to sit back and be like, 'Man, we've got to turn this into a shootout,'" Bridgewater said. "I think for us, we've got to make sure that every drive we get, we end with a kick, and that being an extra point. We want to make sure that we're playing the game within ourselves, within our scheme, and go from there."