It wasn't a secret that the Panthers, who were at the bottom of the league with those two sacks, were having trouble getting to the quarterback. There had been pressure and hurries, which helped, and Wonnum had a tackle for loss on Kyler Murray in Week 2 that wasn't counted as a sack since Murray was considered a runner. Still, the numbers were nowhere near what Wharton knew they could be.
"First few weeks, we weren't getting too much pressure that we would like," explained Wharton. "So just to get each other on the same page and rush as one. Coach gives us a lot of leeway to go ahead and call four-man rushes, and I just think that we have a lot of potential in that room and we should live up to it."
Wharton issued the challenge, echoed by guys like Robinson and Brown. It resonated across the unit, and particularly with rookies like Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen, who were finishing the first quarter of their NFL rookie season.
"We really emphasized trying to get to the quarterback because we thought our production, as far as sacks-wise, was embarrassing," admitted Umanmielen.
"So we came together, we seen that we had to stop being so stagnant, we can't be scared. It's the NFL. Quarterbacks are going to get out of the pocket sometimes, so we can't rush scared, only go power because we think a dude's going to break the pocket."