ESPN’s First Take is in town at Bank of America Stadium this week for the NBA All-Star game. Panthers coach Ron Rivera was a guest on today’s show, speaking with Stephen A. Smith about the team’s offseason priorities. Rivera said all the right things about protecting Cam Newton and surrounding him with playmakers. Here’s what he had to say, per Kevin Patra at NFL.com.
“We know we’ve got to continue to protect our quarterback, so going into free agency we will look at offensive linemen. Going into the draft, we will look at offensive linemen. . . But also we’ll look at playmakers. . .”
You can watch the full clip here.
If any of that sounded familiar, it’s because the Panthers organization said the same things last offseason, and that wasn’t the first time, either.
Protecting Newton and putting him in a position to succeed should obviously be the team’s first priority. Unfortunately, they haven’t done a very good job of it since he came into the league eight years ago. Newton’s pass protection has been a problem more often than not and he has arguably had less talent to work with at wide receiver than any other top-10 quarterback in the NFL over the last five years. His receivers frequently have ranked on the lower end in average yards of separation and drops have been a problem, as well.
Newton has some promising young weapons now, though. Between Curtis Samuel, Christian McCaffrey and DJ Moore, there’s reason to be hopeful. The real key this offseason will be cementing the offensive line – especially at the left tackle position.
