Can the run defense get back to form?
The Panthers' run defense numbers took a significant hit on Sunday against the Bills. Heading into Week 8, Carolina was eighth in the league in run defense, and second since Week 2. Then James Cook III came to town and rushed for 216 yards. It dropped the Panthers to 16th in the league and raised their average per game to 111.6 yards per game.
"We certainly didn't do a good enough job of coaching, of playing," defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero said. "Don't want to get too much into schematics for competitive reasons, but, I will say that they certainly got the ball on the edge a good amount of times and we just didn't do a good enough job of, adjusting or playing against it. So, I've got to be better our staff's got to be better our players have got to be better, because, you know, that just wasn't good enough."
Now, they'll try to bounce back against a Packers rushing attack that includes Josh Jacobs and Emmanuel Wilson. As a team, Green Bay is middle of the pack, averaging 114.1 yards per game. Josh Jacobs is running for 63.9 yards a contest, and 3.6 a carry.
"He's a patient running back. He reads it well, he sets things up," defensive lineman A'Shawn Robinson said of Jacobs. "So you got to be able to engage in your block, be able to separate, get off, make it declare so your linebackers don't have to bounce gap to gap, and that makes it for us to make it easier for the back end or the linebackers or outside backers or us up front (to) just do our job at a high level."