Panthers fans will learn Bruce Irvin is not the kind of athlete who walks back his public comments. A couple months ago, Irvin made headlines by comparing Carolina’s current defensive front seven to the dominant units he played for in Seattle when the Seahawks were in their prime a few years ago.
This week, Irvin doubled down on that comparison. Irvin says he’s not just blowing smoke, per Max Henson at the team website.
“I’m not just blowing smoke, there are a lot of similar traits here to the front we had in Seattle for those four years I was there.”
We don’t need to revisit this whole idea again. Irvin has a fair point to make that the Panthers’ front seven should be dominant. However, the 2013 Seattle team he was on was the best team of the decade and had more depth and talent up front and especially on the back end.
That being said, they don’t need to have an all-time great defense in order to compete. While the defense made Seattle great, we can’t forget that the Seahawks also had a very good underrated mobile quarterback. If Cam Newton stays healthy the whole season and Ron Rivera gets the defense playing at a top-10 level, they should be able to compete with any team any given week.
