Cheat Sheet: Steelers at Panthers

Aug 27, 2021 at 10:00 AM

How To Watch & Listen

Kickoff is set for Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Fans can watch locally on KDKA or on one of our preseason TV affiliates
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Only Jacksonville had a worse winning percentage in one score games than the Panthers. Carolina played in a whopping 11 one score games (only the Chargers appeared in more), but the Panthers only won two of those contests. Obviously, this implies that the Panthers were more competitive in games throughout the season than their final 5-11 record would indicate in Matt Rhule's first season.
This team allowed 5.6 yards per play on defense and averaged 5.6 yards per play when they had the ball. Carolina was the only team in the league to break exactly even in this telling metric last year.
The Panthers offense only ran 62.1 plays per game last year. Just five offenses ran fewer. Their 10.2 offensive drives per game and 2.19 offensive touchdowns per game were also amongst the worst in the NFL.
This will be the ninth straight season that Carolina is forced to start a different left tackle on opening day.
Last year, the Panthers never started the same offensive line combination for more than two games in a row. They made 10 different offensive line starting lineup changes in 2020 even though Taylor Moton started all 16 games at right tackle and Matt Paradis started every game at center.
Carolina had two wide receivers finish with over 1,000 receiving yards last year, but DJ Moore's 2.23 yards per route run was better than all but 10 wide outs in the league in 2020. Four Panthers players finished the season with over 1,000 yards from scrimmage even though Christian McCaffrey missed almost the entire season.
Still, the Panthers only threw 8% of their passes to tight ends. That tied New England for lowest in the NFL.
No team in the NFL is using less salary cap capital on the defensive side of the ball than Carolina. But it should be noted that the Panthers not only used their first round pick on this side of the ball this year, but also every single one of their draft picks on defense a year ago.
No team gave more snaps to defensive rookies than Carolina last year. In fact, the Panthers went from one of the NFL's oldest teams in 2019 to one of the very youngest in 2020.
A very heavy Dime defense in terms of usage, the Panthers used their Base defense on just 4.6% of their snaps. That tied with New England as the least amount in the entire league in 2020.
The Panthers kickoff team allowed just seven total returns during the entire 2020 season, the best in the league.
Of the 30 fumbles that occurred in Panthers games last year, Carolina recovered 20 of them. That 66.7% of recoveries was the best in the league and extremely unlikely to repeat itself going forward.

Injury Update

N/A for preseason

Series History

1995 was the inaugural season for the Panthers in the NFL with former Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers as their first ever head coach. Carolina won seven games that season, which was more than double the wins of any other expansion team until that point. The Panthers went to the playoffs the following season and Capers won Coach of the Year. That year was the first time Pittsburgh met the Panthers, in a game that went Carolina's way in the final game of the regular season. Since then, the Steelers have played Carolina just six more times with Pittsburgh winning all six to make this series 6-1 in Pittsburgh's favor.