Early returns for Carolina Panthers' revamped pass-rush aren't good

A lot was made about all the moves the Carolina Panthers made on their defense this past offseason, but the team's returns from Week 1 suggest it could be another long season for the unit.

The Panthers were torched for 200 yards on the ground, and while Trevor Lawrence only threw for 178 yards, he didn't need to do much more with Travis Etienne running so well.

When he did drop back to throw, Lawrence faced little pressure. He wasn't sacked once and the 13% pressure rate he faced was the lowest for any quarterback in Week 1.

Lowest Week 1 pressure rates:

13% - Trevor Lawrence vs. CAR
22% - Tua Tagovailoa vs. IND
24% - Kyler Murray vs. NO
24% - Daniel Jones vs. MIA
24% - Jayden Daniels vs. NYG https://t.co/SlJIo4mh0q
— Jacob Gibbs (@jagibbs_23) September 8, 2025

Pro Football Focus had a slightly better percentage for Carolina at 16.1%, but that's not great and would still place the Panthers as the worst team in the NFL at getting pressure in Week 1.

PFF credited the Panthers with five pressures, with D.J. Wonnum accounting for three of them and A'Shawn Robinson coming up with the other two.

Rookie Nic Scourton played just eight pass-rush snaps and failed to record a single pressure, and the same was the case for fellow rookie Princely Umanmielen.

Other new Panthers, Tershawn Wharton and Patrick Jones, played 10 and 24 pass-rush snaps, respectively, and were also blanked in the pressures department.

As if all that wasn't enough, head coach Dave Canales admitted that his team's tackling was "not great," and that's something Wonnum agreed with.

"A tackle is a want to," he said. "That's not nothing, you, it's not something, not schematic or anything. You just got to go tackle. We're football players and we've been playing tackle since we were in high school, middle school, so we got to come ready to go."

The fact that the Jaguars didn't have more points is surprising and is a testament to them not being very good on that side of the ball.

We shudder to think what would've happened to Carolina against a better offense.

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