Peppers comes up big again with sack, score

By Darin Gantt - daringantt@carolina.rr.com

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- There are still times when Carolina Panthers defensive end Julius Peppers does it, that those who have seen it time and again run out of words.

“Man,” linebacker Thomas Davis said, shaking his head in disbelief. “The guy is just a tremendous player, and it showed today.”

Peppers turned in the latest in a series of stellar games, with a sack-strip for a forced fumble in the fourth quarter, which bookended his second-quarter interception return for a touchdown in the Panthers' 34-21 win at Arizona.

“I think he's been tremendous the last four weeks,” Panthers coach John Fox said. “We need him to be, and he has been. I think he's probably played as good a stretch, in my opinion, these last four games as I've ever seen him play.”

That's saying something, considering the sometimes-otherworldly plays turned in by the 29-year-old.

Then again, all he did Sunday was change the face of the game with two defining plays.

The first one was a surprise to nearly everyone in the building, and following quickly after a home-run touchdown pass to Steve Smith, gave the Panthers a 28-7 halftime lead which they were able to sustain.

Cardinals left tackle Mike Gandy tried to cut-block him down, but Peppers pushed clear, and was left staring down Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner. All he had to do was jump and catch it, and there was no one close to him who could even think about keeping him out of the end zone.

“Did you see the walk-in?” defensive tackle Damione Lewis said with a laugh. “That's one of those plays he's the only one capable of making. Not only did he make a great read, but then he made the physical play.”

The quiet Peppers mostly just grinned when asked about the moment.

“Yeah, it felt good to get that,” he said of his first touchdown since 2004. “It didn't feel good because I was scoring, it felt good because it was a big play and a momentum booster in the game.

“That's what felt good about it.”

Of course, he wasn't finished.

His fourth-quarter forced fumble gave him seven sacks on the season and four straight games with at least one sack. He caused two of the Cardinals' six turnovers for the day, a good step toward erasing the league-worst minus-14 turnover ratio the Panthers entered with.

At the individual level, it's quite a departure from Peppers' one-sack, 10-tackle start in the first three games, which had many wondering if he was again heading out the door after an offseason spent trying to get away.

But Sunday, all was well with Peppers, no one was muttering about the million-dollars-plus he pocketed for the effort.

On Sunday, he was back to making the kind of plays he has made so often around here, and lifting up the team in the process.

“We stress getting turnovers and playing red-zone defense,” Peppers said. “Those are a couple of the areas that we didn't feel as good about how we were playing.

“To get that many turnovers in this game this week was a real positive for our team.”