By Brendan Marks
The Charlotte Observer
As if Pete Carroll was just going to let anyone steal from his cookie jar that easily.
“You guys are working really hard to try to get me to tell you our game plan,” the Seattle Seahawks coach told reporters Wednesday via conference call. “What we want to do and how we do it and all that stuff.
“If I tell you, then that would help them, huh?”
After the way Carroll’s Seahawks have owned the Carolina Panthers in recent years, it’s understandable to try to get to the bottom of the issue.
In the seven games these cross-country foes have played since drafting their respective starting quarterbacks — Newton to Carolina in 2011, then former N.C. State star Russell Wilson to Seattle a year later — the Seahawks have a 5-2 edge.
And while you could point to any number of mitigating factors or unique circumstances in select games, the overwhelming trend across that seven-game sample is clear: Seattle has almost always had Newton’s number.
Or to be blunt, Seattle’s defense has typically used the Superman ‘S’ on Newton’s chest for their own personal target practice.
The statistics for Newton against Seattle all-time are pretty bleak —more on that later —but as Carroll tried to explain, the numbers are not the result of any exact formula.
So why have the Seahawks had so much success stopping Newton?
“I don’t know,” Carroll said. “We’ve just been fortunate at times, but I don’t feel like we have stopped him. He always feels like a very impacting player and the guy who causes us all kind of problems.”
But if Carroll thought the Newton of years past was a problem, he hasn’t seen the more-efficient Newton of 2018. Offensive coordinator Norv Turner has aided Newton’s development, and the “fleet” of skill-position players at his disposal is more dynamic than ever before.
That leads to a theory, one that will be tested Sunday:
Yes, Cam Newton’s struggles against the Seahawks are historically well-documented … but unfixable? Hardly.
THE UGLY NUMBERS
First, the data. It’s the easiest, clearest, most quantitative look at the what of Newton’s struggles with against Seattle.
The why, as Carroll coyly kept to himself, is less obvious.
In the seven all-time matchups, two of them in the postseason, Newton has thrown for an average of just 185 yards. That drops to 177.6 if you only count the regular season, which is his third-worst mark against any one team (behind only Houston and Jacksonville). He has never thrown for more than 269 yards against Seattle, either, with that career-best mark coming during Carolina’s 15-1 regular season in 2015.
But there’s much more.
His regular season passer rating against Seattle, a lowly 69.8, is also his lowest against any team.
And the Panthers have turned the ball over 13 times, eight by Newton himself. The Seahawks have only had nine turnovers during those games.
“I think part of it has been that they’ve always been tough games, they’ve been close games,” coach Ron Rivera said of Newton’s turnovers against Seattle. “Sometimes they’re games where you’ve been forced to try to make a play to win, and sometimes that happens and something unfortunate happens.”
Even in Newton’s two victories over Seattle —both during the team’s 2015 run to the Super Bowl —he accounted for just three touchdowns to two turnovers.
“They get after the quarterback,” Newton said of Seattle’s propensity to force turnovers. “That’s what they do extremely well, and they’re very opportunistic in that.
“You know what they’re going to be in (defensively), they know you know what they’re going to be in, but they just play so fast and rally around the football.”
‘LEGION OF BOOM’ IS LONG GONE
But for all the trouble Newton has had against Seattle, there’s also reasons for cautious optimism on Sunday.
Namely, that this isn’t nearly the same Seahawks defense Carolina last faced in 2016.
Seattle’s ‘Legion of Boom’ —starring cornerback Richard Sherman and safeties Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor, among others —has mostly dissipated.
Sherman signed with San Francisco this offseason. Chancellor effectively retired in the summer because of lingering neck problems. Thomas is out for the year with a broken leg after a lengthy contract dispute. Other ‘Legion of Boom-ers,’ such as cornerbacks Byron Maxwell and Brandon Browner and defensive end Cliff Avril, are all current free agents or have retired.
The ‘Legion of Boom’ is long gone —and that bodes well for Newton’s chances of getting out of Seattle’s back pocket.
Not that Newton is overlooking the team’s current defense.
“They’re still dominant, let’s not get it twisted. This team can still wreak havoc,” Newton explained. “This team can still get after the run and get after the quarterback.
“They may not have the quote-unquote ‘Legion of Boom’ or the players that I would say were the faces of the team, but this team still is capable of playing at a high level.”
The Seahawks are tied for 11th in the NFL with 16 turnovers created.
‘They’ve maintained all of the problems we’ve always dealt with’
Then there’s the other thing working in Newton’s favor this go-around.
Newton.
Newton is easily having the most efficient passing season of his career, completing 68.4 percent of his passes (compared with a previous career-high of 61.7 percent) to go along with 20 touchdowns and just six interceptions. Add the recent emergence of young receivers DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel to the steady presence of Christian McCaffrey, Greg Olsen, and Devin Funchess, and Newton has options aplenty with which to attack this Seahawks defense.
“I think Norv has done a really good job of picking and choosing the stuff that he really likes that they’ve done successfully in the past, and they’ve maintained all of the problems we’ve always dealt with, which really come from the quarterback runs and his special ability,” Carroll said. “(Their offense) seems very similar and still very problematic.”
Even in back-to-back losses to Pittsburgh and Detroit, the diversity in Carolina’s offense has consistently proven difficult to contain.
Now it’s all about Newton reversing his bad luck —and bad numbers —against Seattle.
So do all the factors bode well for Newton as far as bucking his Seattle woes?
“I think so,” Rivera said, “but we’ll see on Sunday. That’s why you play them —to find out.”/
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