Lack of rushes an issue for Panthers' Fox

By Darin Gantt - daringantt@carolina.rr.com

CHARLOTTE -- In a perfect world, the Carolina Panthers obviously would prefer to run more.

Panthers coach John Fox said Friday he was far more concerned about the team's continued red-zone problems than the lack of a consistent running attack.

The Panthers left Thursday's 24-17 loss to Miami with 47 plays which were supposed to be passes (including four sacks and a Jake Delhomme scramble), and just 26 runs, far from the kind of balance they seek.

They are still one of just five NFL teams with more rushes than pass attempts (320 to 305), but that's not getting them what it used to.

“Each one of these takes on a different personality,” Fox said Friday. “I say that a lot, but if you're behind, you tend to throw more; if you're ahead, you tend to run more. I don't think that's a characteristic just relative to us; I think that's probably true across the league. Again, you're trying to score points, and the unfortunate thing is they scored seven more than we did. We had the ball down there with six seconds to go and an opportunity to score. We had it down there a couple of other times, and as I mentioned last night, we were 0-for-2 in the red (zone).

“Seven-point games, fourth-quarter wins and losses, it's usually what it comes down to. It came down to that in our season in all but the first game.”

If that's the way you want to go with it, the Panthers fell woefully short as well. Both trips inside the Dolphins' 20-yard line ended in field goals. Turn those into touchdowns and you're in business.

In one game, the Panthers fell from 13th in the league to 16th in red-zone offense (measured in terms of touchdown percentage), having scored 14 touchdowns in 27 trips, with seven field goals.

Their overall scoring in the red zone (21 of 27 trips) is 77.8 percent, or 27th in the league.

There was no more glaring example of the problem than the Panthers' first drive, which looked so promising but unraveled with two straight incomplete passes and a sack after getting to the Miami 7-yard line.

“It's like most plays: If we run it and it doesn't work, it's not very good; if we throw it and it doesn't work, that's not very good, either,” Fox said. “But you've really got to do one of the two. The key is executing it, and we didn't execute it as well as we needed to.”

Running back DeAngelo Williams shrugged off the idea that the plan wasn't as run-heavy as it needed it be.

“That's what was called. We've got to execute the play,” Williams said. “Had it been three runs and we had not got in, it would have been the other way around, ‘Why didn't we pass it?' We just didn't execute well enough to get into the end zone.”

Still, the Panthers' biggest problem stemmed from their inability to maintain a consistent offense in the way they are best suited to do so.

By this point, the evidence should be fairly clear. When Panthers quarterback Jake Delhomme throws 30 times or more, the Panthers are 13-32. When he's able to stay under 30 attempts, they are 46-8.

Yet there they were, testing rookie cornerbacks instead of running the ball, finishing with 42 pass attempts and just 27 rushes. That's despite averaging 6.7 yards per carry, with Williams getting 122 yards on 13 carries.

“Whatever it takes to win the game,” Williams said.

“Whether it be five carries and 90 passes or 90 runs and five passes. You can't just go out and say it's going to take 25 to 50 carries to win the game, because that's not necessarily true. I think everybody would be running it 25 to 50 times a game.”

Asked if the knee soreness that cost Williams some practice time in recent weeks was a factor, Fox shook his head: “I don't think myself or the nation thought so.” If that's the case, limiting his carries must have been a conscious choice by someone.

Williams laughed when asked about his condition, apparently unaware he had even been on the injury report as questionable the last two weeks. “I feel good,” he said when asked if the knee was bothering him. “Not to my knowledge.”

Fox downplayed the extent of Williams' carries as they related to the offensive woes.

“Well, for the type of yardage he got ... like I said, we were seven points short,” Fox said when asked if the limited carries hurt their chances to play offense the way they planned. “We moved the ball offensively pretty well; we just didn't capitalize on some scoring opportunities, and I think that tends to be able to bite you every once in a while.”

The Panthers didn't use as much of the no-huddle passing game as they had the week before, which Fox attributed to multiple factors but not limited to a shuffled offensive line and a short week to prepare for a unique-schemed opponent.

“Probably all of the above,” Fox said. “We had a left guard (Mackenzy Bernadeau) that started his first game ever in the National Football League. We had a left tackle (Travelle Wharton) that other than (one half) the week before hasn't played (the position) in a few years. That's not an excuse, but it's just reality.”

Wharton admitted it was “very tough,” for the Panthers to sustain themselves when they're so out of character, but, like Williams, defended the plays.

“We've got to be efficient in both areas,” he said. “We're a balanced team, and we've got to be able to run the football and also be able to protect so Jake can make his throws. For us, we didn't get that done yesterday.”