What Dolphins Should Expect from the Carolina Panthers

The Miami Dolphins will be looking to make it two in a row when they face the Carolina Panthers at Bank Of America Stadium on Sunday.

This will be a battle of 1-3 teams, with the Panthers coming off a 42-13 blowout loss against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. This will be Carolina's second home game of the season, the first ending in a 30-0 victory against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 3.

To get the lowdown on the Jets and the matchup Sunday, Charlotte Observer columnist (and former Miami Herald write) Scott Fowler was a guest on the All Dolphins Podcast for a recent episode and here are some of the highlights (please not the comments were edited in some places for clarity and space purposes). You can find the full conversation here.

BREAKING DOWN THE DOLPHINS-PANTHERS MATCHUP

Q. Are the Panthers really as bad as what fans might have might gather from their 42-13 loss at New England on Sunday?

SF: Not quite that bad, but this is definitely not a clash of the titans. More misery loves company. These guys two weeks ago won a game 30-0 at home, and then last week lost 42-13. They are definitely better at home, so that will help them a little bit. But they're one of the NFL's worst, five or six teams probably overall, maybe not the worst. They have a couple of good players that Miami will have to account for, but they'll also give up a lot of points, probably. So this could be a pretty entertaining game, I think.

Q. The game against New England was weird because despite losing by 29, the Panthers actually outgained the Patriots, and they did better on third down, and there were no turnovers. Of course, there were two long punt returns, one for a touchdown, the other one for 61 yards. And then I go back to how could a team that looks so bad against New England. spank the Atlanta Falcons the previous week, 30-0.

SF: Right, and the week before they had played Arizona close, it was a five-point loss. Everything went right in that Atlanta game and in the New England game, they went up early, they scored a touchdown, Panthers did and missed the extra point, and then it all went downhill from there. They gave up 42 points in a row. Well, you don't see that very often in an NFL game, but 42 straight for New England began with some bad special teams stuff. They did gain some yardage in these last couple of games, but really that shutout win was more defensive-oriented. And so Bryce Young is just a big question mark for them. You've got your own Alabama quarterback with your own problems, but Bryce here is in his third year. He will play a good game sometimes. But he just doesn't generate enough points. That has been kind of the hallmark of it. Now, part of that's on the offensive line for sure. Part of it right now, honestly, is he only has one receiver that scares anybody, and that's rookie Tetairoa McMillan. That's who the Dolphins will have to deal with most of all. This guy is really good, No. 8 overall pick. But they just don't have enough around him. And he's not that great yet, he would be ideally a No. 2 receiver right now, but he has been thrust into this role as number 1. And their offensive line is not very good, all the typical kind of problems that make them not always score a lot of points. But occasionally they will catch a roll like they did in that 30-0 win.

Q. You mentioned the Carolina offensive line, Robert Hunt was maybe the key member of that line, former Dolphins guard whose loss Dolphins fans are still bemoaning. How big of a loss was it when, am I wrong in saying he was easily the best lineman on that team?

SF: I would agree, and it was a big loss. So they're struggling there. So many offensive teams in the NFL lose a couple of offensive linemen, and they've lost two here. So they're kind of patching it together. But as you know, Robert Hunt is not just a guy. I mean, he was the guy. They paid him enough money to make him the highest-paid offensive guard at the time in the league. He's a kind of a natural leader, funny, keeps it light. You remember all that. I mean, we love him here. In the locker room, he's just one of the go-to guys. So when he's not on the field, the run game doesn't look as good in particular. So that has been a major loss for sure.

Q. Let me go back to Bryson for a second because it's weird to me because last year the early part of the season he was not good. They bench him, put Andy Dalton and some folks are like, OK, that's the end of it. They're gonna have to go with somebody else. He gets back into the lineup and all of a sudden toward the end of last season, there was like, OK, maybe there's something there. And then this year it sounds like it's gone back like this. So what's happened to the dude?

SF: Yeah, your guess is as good as mine. I followed it very closely. But at the end of last year was the best he'd ever played. He had a little stretch in the last three games where he had accounted for 10 touchdowns and zero picks. Turnovers have been a problem for him, as with many quarterbacks. But like you said, he didn't have any turnovers in the last game, but they still only scored 13 points. And the last seven were with Andy Dalton because they benched Bryce again in the fourth quarter. This is because the game was so out of reach, not because they're gonna start Andy Dalton this week. They won't, it'll still be Bryce Young's team. I would say the problem has been that he's too conservative, takes too many of the dump-down type passes, has not been able to drive the ball downfield with any regularity. So you can look at the stats last week, he had no turnovers, but he also threw the ball like 30 times and had something like 150 passing yards. He's just not getting it down the field. And again, he doesn't have enough help, but nevertheless, sometimes you just gotta do it with average receivers, right? I mean, that's, what a great quarterback does. They make any receiver. I mean, Marino didn't always have Clayton and Duper either. I mean, he had some guys, some just OK guys that he made look great because he put it right in the bread basket. Bryce has had trouble with that. As they they like to say around here, they want to see Alabama Bryce, because they remember what Alabama Bryce looks like. And we get little glimpses of it. But we don't see a ton of it, haven't seen a ton of it this year. I will say he's helped himself with the turnover problem, but it may have gone too far the other way.

Q. What's the fan base think of Bryce Young?

SF: I mean, they're not quite ready to give up on him or anything. but they just look around the league. He was picked No. 1 overall in 2023. They gave up a ton to move up from number 9 to number 1. So they gave up D.J. Moore, a wide receiver who's still playing well with the Bears. They've had some good players here. I say they don't have any star power. DJ Moore wasn't like a superstar. Christian McCaffrey was, and they traded him several years ago. That was the face of the franchise for a while. If Bryce had Christian McCaffrey in the backfield, it would look a lot different for sure. But yeah, they're not quite ready to go completely south on Bryce. But I'd say they have two home games coming up, Dolphins and then Cowboys, and if they lose both of those like that last game, I mean, I think there'll be some changes going on here.

Q. OK, what do you make of Dave Canales as head coach? What has struck you about him and what do you think now?

SF: Dave Canales is like Pete Carroll Jr. in terms of relentless positivity. I mean, all the time, like to a point where, like Russell Wilson was like this too and still is as a quarterback. Just to the point where great day, every day is a great day, beautiful day out there, that sort of thing. That's what he is and that is who he is. It is worn a little thin here because they're 6-15 since he's been here. I will say he's got a good football mind. He was hired, he was obscure when he was hired. He was Tampa Bay's offensive coordinator and got some of the credit for Baker Mayfield's resurgence. Oddly enough, Baker played here as did Sam Darnold at the same time. We had them both. I mean, if you kept either one, you don't have to draft Bryce Young. And they're both playing better than Bryce Young right now. But anyway, in any case, Canales is supposed to be an offensive mind. They have not scored enough points. I know he's feeling some of the pressure of that as well. I like him personally, but he's feeling a little heat right now.

Q. If I can take you back real quickly, as you mentioned earlier, you were covering the Dolphins back in the early 1990s. So you were there for the Dolphins' last AFC Championship Game appearance, which was in the 1992 season. Dolphins were at home. Unfortunately got spanked by the Buffalo Bills 29-10. Man, you were there in 93 when Dan Marino tore his Achilles. So from your time covering the Dolphins, any particular experience or players stand out to you?

SF: I mean, it was probably Shula, honestly, above any of the others. I was the victim of his wrath a couple of times. Honestly, I think he was very concerned that his relationship with Marino was portrayed positively. And at one point I wrote some story about, you know, they never had a running game back then. You know how it was. They were some crazy stat. They hadn't had a 1,000-yard rusher in 20 years or something. And I wrote something about that, quoted Marino and Shula, and he didn't think it was portrayed fairly. So I got the Shula treatment, but I really liked the guy. I mean, how many Hall of Fame coaches just would take your calls anytime you called him at home and want you to call him and say, I'm glad you're thanks for running that by me. And I'd call him about fairly small stuff, little injuries here or there or whatever. And he never really big-timed me, even though at the time I was 25 years old or whatever and he had already had the undefeated season and everything else he had done. And so probably Shula most of all.

Q. Do you have a sort of a feel for what kind of game you expect on Sunday?

SF: Yeah, I think that, again, the Dolphins, if they're smart, and they are, I'm sure, will try hard to run the ball, first and foremost, because that's what everyone does here. For the Panthers, they're gonna activate a rookie wide receiver who’s fast because that's one thing they lack here. I think he'll be active, Jimmy Horn, and just run him down the field and at least get some top off the defense a little bit because people have not respected the deep ball with these guys. So if they can hit one or two of those here, I think the Panthers might have a shot if they don't turn the ball over. But in general, I will probably pick the Dolphins to win. I think they're, even with the Tyreek Hill injury, I think they probably honestly have just a little more talent than these guys do.

BREAKING DOWN THE DOLPHINS-PANTHERS MATCHUP

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