Brian Burns Earns NFC Defensive Player of the Week Honors
After putting on one heck of a show this past Sunday in the Panthers' 20-0 shutout win over Detroit, defensive end Brian Burns was named the NFC's Defensive Player of the Week.
Burns finished the game with five tackles, 4 QB hits, two sacks, and two tackles for loss and honestly, probably could have had one or two more sacks. The Lions just had no answer for him and as a result, Burns was in Matthew Stafford's face all game long.
In the postgame press conference Burns was asked if he was disappointed by not getting the couple of sack opportunities he missed out on.
"No, man I accept anything God throws my way and if he intended for me to get two, that’s what it was. He’s saving my big game for a special time, I’m waiting on it, it’s alright. I just want to tip my hat off to the coaches, that had a great game plan and they really utilized everybody on defense the proper way. We really went out there and made those calls right."
Carolina defensive coordinator Phil Snow changed up the team's gameplan and scheme a little bit and used Brian Burns in different roles. He mainly lined up on the edge but also stood at outside linebacker - the position he initially worked at when he came into the league. Burns said he loved playing multiple spots and it seemed to really pay off because Detroit had no idea what was coming.
"Like I said, the game plan was great. They had no idea where we were coming from, they didn’t know if I was dropping, covering the slot, covering the back or if I was rushing off the edge or going into the B-gap. We were sending guys from all over the place and they messed up their protection a lot. Like I said, I usually don’t get freebies and they decided not to block me. So me standing off the ball, me moving around and putting me in different areas, along with (Jeremy) Chinn and everybody else, that was just great disguises and great execution by the blitzes."
Burns and the Panthers will travel to Minnesota this weekend to battle the Minnesota Vikings at 1 p.m. on FOX.
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