But Idzik points to these last few weeks when it’s really come alive. It was an answer, he explained, to defenses trying to shut down the run game with Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard that hit a stride through the middle of the season.
“Anytime you’re running the ball well, I think, the defense starts to shrink. We actually emphasized it the last couple of weeks of we want to widen the field. We want to make sure that they have to defend the whole width of the grass,” Idzik said, pointing to a 9-yard run Young had in the last game against Tampa that put the Panthers in the red zone. They scored a touchdown three plays later. The scoring play saw Young scramble out of a sack and find Ja’Tavion Sanders in the back of the end zone.
“So that’s another element of us widening the field, making sure that those guys can’t start to collapse the box on us on our rundowns…all that stuff helps expand that defense and make sure that they got to play laterally as well, so they can’t just fit their gaps, and Bryce has been a huge element of that.”
Somewhat adjacent to this subject is the Panthers’ employment of the QB sneak with Mitchell Evans. Carolina used the play for the first time against Seattle with success, as the rookie tight end (and former high school quarterback) picked up the fourth-and-1. Now that it’s on tape, the Bucs will have to prepare for the possibility, as well as the bootlegs and handoffs the Panthers have been using.
And in Charlotte, the Panthers are preparing Evans for the possibility of using the play again on Saturday.
“(Mitchell’s done a good job of protecting the ball and making sure his pad level’s right, and finding the crease,” Idzik said. “You don’t want to run right into perhaps their best plugger up front. You’ve got a guy like (Bucs defensive lineman) Vita Vea, right, and you want to make sure that you understand, ‘OK, where is he stunting, what gap is he fitting?’
“You want to make sure you find a little crease so you can keep your pad level down and get the yard we need. But Mitch did a great job of that over the last handful of weeks, just making sure that, invoking confidence in Dave to call it.”
