One Area of Struggle Led to Panthers Making Decision on Defensive Coordinator

The Carolina Panthers became the first team in the NFL to fire a coach in-season, moving on from defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero on Friday morning. The move comes just under 24 hours since the Panthers gave up 27 points in a road loss to the Green Bay Packers.

In that game, quarterback Jordan Love was able to pick apart the Panthers' secondary, which we should note was banged up with injuries. Carolina was playing backups as they had several defensive backs miss the game. 

But that wasn't the big reason why they lost.

Carolina simply couldn't get any pressure on Love and allowed him to sit back and have a ton of time to make the reads and throw. The Panthers had a 44 percent blitz rate in the game and failed to sack Love once. Per Sumer Stats, that is the 4th-highest blitz rate without generating a sack in a game this season. 

Yikes. 

It wasn't just the Green Bay game that got Evero fired. Instead, it was a consistent lack of pressure all season long, and even in prior years, that's concerning.

On Friday, Jon Leyard tweeted a stat that is very eye-opening for the Panthers' defense under Evero. "From 2023-2026, no defense had a lower pressure rate than the Panthers under Evero, and no defense had less sacks." Man, that's not very good at all.

Now, part of that is the lack of personnel for the defensive coordinator but the scheme wasn't great by any means either. The Panthers went out and spent big money on Jaelan Phillips this offseason to help the pass rush. However, its been a slow start as he has just 2.5 sacks in five games and has missed two games so far. 

Phillips isn't the only pass rusher who has been hurt for Carolina. They are down to second and third stringers at the position and the defensive line has been hit with other injuries as well that has impacted things. 

Where the Panthers go from here defensively will be the big question. They are 3-4 and could be out of first place in the NFC South depending on what the Atlanta Falcons do this weekend. With an offense that has shown signs of being very good, their playoff hopes could come down to what the defense does the rest of the way.

Carolina is now set to host Denver in Week 9 at home in what will be their first game with a new coordinator.