Talk » This season started with an all but unified chorus against

Ron Rivera’s eight years long penchant for running the ball and punting in all the wrong places. I’m not surprised that he has become more aggressive as the season has worn on. Play off scenarios tighten at the same time as the coaching staff is learning just who they can and can’t trust in make-or-break situations. This has been much of the recipe behind Rivera’s late season winnings streaks. It is frustrating to watch Youth J.J. Jansen Jersey , and creates opportunities to sink a season before it really begins, but it is who he is at this point. While it isn’t surprising to see Ron go for the occasional fourth down, I never thought I would see the day where half of the fan-base is yelling at this coach for a not-strictly necessary two point conversion attempt. This season got weird.I have mixed feelings about the decision to go for it and the play they burned a timeout to call. But we aren’t going to dissect the play itself. This column is about coaching decisions, so let’s analyze the logic behind it and what that might mean for the rest of 2018 and beyond.The easiest thing to see about that play is that it wasn’t why the Panthers lost. With three timeouts and over a minute left, it is hard to believe the Lions couldn’t get back in field goal range before the end of the game. Matt Prater was as reliable as our memories of Graham Gano. The Panthers were in a rough spot and I don’t think there was a right decision.What I do like is the willingness to go for it. That’s an edge the Panthers haven’t had all year. It’s an edge they have to have so long their defense is treating every game like a walk through. If a team is trading touchdowns with you all day, which is what the Lions game easily could have been if Funchess could catch a ball and Kerryon Johnson had remained healthy, then the only way to win is to ultimately respond to their seven points with your own eight.Monday Night Football showed us the future is offense. Not every game will feature 100+ points Stitched J.J. Jansen Jersey , but a true contender will need to be able to win those kinds of games. Maybe your team has a defense, maybe it doesn’t, but you need to have a plan to win a game either way. Sunday’s loss to the Lions showed an understanding of one basic principle of this new NFL: the team with the most points usually wins. That’s a new perspective for Rivera to acknowledge. That is progress I can root for. Spoiler alert, but they’d better be willing to invest a first round pick."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Keep Sounding PodcastPanthers 2019 NFL DraftCSR Film RoomWhat are the odds the Panthers land a late-round sleeper at offensive tackle? New,11commentsSpoiler alert, but they’d better be willing to invest a first round pick. ESTShareTweetShareShareWhat are the odds the Panthers land a late-round sleeper at offensive tackle? Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY SportsAs we continue exploring how the Panthers will address positions of need and how the draft may factor into their plans, offensive tackle is going to be a critical one. CSR’s Walker Clement recently noted the following about the pressing need to upgrade at tackle:So as we did with the defensive end position Youth Mario Addison Jersey , let’s explore how realistic it is for the Panthers to find a sleeper at tackle in the late rounds of the draft. If you haven’t read the DE piece, here’s the overview of the methodology: I pulled a query from Football Reference showing the Top 35 tackles in 2018 as determined by Approximate Value (AV) and looked at the rounds in which they were drafted. I then cross-referenced Football Reference’s list with Pro Football Focus’ publicly available player rankings (nerdy spreadsheet here) and am comfortable the list of the Top 35 is pretty solid while also fully acknowledging no player rating system is perfect. Here’s where the Top 35 tackles in 2018 were drafted:Wow. It doesn’t take a genius to look at the graph and realize that if you want a stud OT you’d better be willing to invest a first round pick. Hoping to find a sleeper from Rounds 4 through 7 just probably isn’t going to happen. Only seven of the Top 35 tackles were drafted in the later rounds: David Bakhtiari (4th), Bobby Massie (4th), Julie’n Davenport (4th), Ricky Wagner (5th), Sam Tevi (6th), Bobby Hart (7th) Stitched Mario Addison Jersey , and Charles Leno (7th). Interestingly, Bakhtiari was selected as an All-Pro in 2018 while Leno made the Pro Bowl. Let’s now look at the “hit rate” of finding a top tackle in Rounds 4 through 7. While this is an arbitrary number on my part, a solid NFL career can last eight years if not longer so let’s look at that timeframe. Between 2011 and 2018 a total of 66 tackles were drafted between Rounds 4 and 7, per Football Reference. This makes the probability of finding a quality tackle in the late rounds somewhere around a 10.6 percent (seven of 66). It is interesting to note that the next highest cohort after first rounders are undrafted free agents. But to put this in context, around 500 UDFA’s flood the league every year and I’d assume teams take lots of fliers on young, cheap, promising tackles. While I have no idea how many UDFAs have been signed over the last 12 years Youth Cameron Artis-Payne Jersey , my gut tells me it is probably significantly more than the number drafted between Rounds 4 and 7. There’s no doubt the Panthers are going to need to find a quality left tackle for both the present and the future. If they try landing a sleeper in the late rounds, history tells us that strategy is more like a pipe dream.