When Panthers Head Coach John Fox and General Manager Marty Hurney sat down at the end of last years season to address the problems with their team, I doubt they could have imagined where their team would be after the third preseason game, where the finely tuned Panthers were running on all cylinders, and that’s almost an understatement.

These are the kind of games, even though it is preseason, where your glad to be a fan. Looking back on the game it’s almost impossible to find an area of the team that needed improving.

Let’s start with the defense. If you had to pick one group on the team that played the best, I would have to say it was the defensive line, but it’s really anyone’s opinion. As I said Friday, it was imperative that the other defensive linemen besides Julius Peppers get some pressure, and they delivered. The entire defensive line, from Tyler Brayton to Damione Lewis was getting tremendous pressure, recording four sacks and a forced fumble. Speaking of Julius Peppers, Peppers looked like a man on a mission, recording a sack, two fumble recoveries, and a forced fumble, but the stats don’t show you how he manhandled the Redskin’s left tackle into Jason Campbell forcing a fumble, that was pretty sweet.

The secondary looked great as well, holding Jason Campbell to only 39 yards, and nearly intercepting a couple of passes in the first half. All in all the Panthers defense was smothering, even without SS Chris Harris which is a great sign.

Moving on to the offense. I suppose the one area that you maybe could find some problems was with Jake Delhomme and the offensive line with Delhomme getting sacked twice, but talk about splitting hairs. After a slow first quarter and a couple of not-so-great throws by Jake Delhomme, the Panther’s offense took off. The two-pronged rushing attack was on full display with both Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams breaking 100 yards with 50 and 60 touchdown runs respectively, which is fantastic because it means that both of Carolina’s running backs have that big play ability (and that puts not one, but two Panthers running backs at the top of the rushing leaders this week). And I almost forgot about that fumble by Williams that was picked up by Smitty and run for a touchdown. Also, Stewart showed he can pound the ball as well, picking up a nice first down on a fourth and one.

Even though Jake Delhomme didn’t look fabulous, his receivers sure did pick up the slack, Dwayne Jarrett and Daunte Rosario Coming up big, Jarrett making a great catch on a ball that was thrown behind him and in traffic, and Rosario going up and getting a perfectly thrown ball from Jake Delhomme for a 24 yard touchdown. Oh, and Steve Smith had a couple of nice receptions too, one going for a 33 yard touchdown.

The Panther’s special teams even looked impressive, shutting down the Redskins return game, not to mention John Kasay going 4-4 with a 52 yarder his longest make.

There are so many words to describe that game, but the biggest one was preseason. Yes, the offense looked great, the defense scary, but it was still only a preseason game. The Panthers are going to need to play just like that on opening day, but they’ve at least shown that Steve Smith is not their entire offense, far from it in fact. With the starters probably not even playing next week, this should give the Panthers some confidence going into the season, and at least in the short run it gave Panthers fans something to get excited about.

Tags: john fox, panthers, redskins