Louis Riddick's Scouting Report: Panthers
By Louis Riddick
Redskins Scout
August 14, 2004
Redskins scout Louis Riddick will contribute an occasional scouting report and preview of upcoming games for Redskins.com throughout the 2004 season.
It's that time of year again. Training camp. Two-a-days. Preseason games. Everyone saying that their goal is to "get to the Super Bowl."
Here at Redskin Park, the football team and staff have begun the long journey that is an NFL season. The goal is as it always has been: be better than every other team with championship aspirations.
As has been well documented, we have added a lot of talent to the roster since the end of the 2003 season. Players like Clinton Portis, Shawn Springs, Mark Brunell, Cornelius Griffin and Sean Taylor all are going to all counted on to play huge roles and to help get this team, this organization, back to where it belongs.
Hall of Fame Coach Joe Gibbs has assembled an all-star coaching staff that has some of the best teachers of the game that I have ever been around in my career.
The time and attention to detail that has been invested this offseason has already begun to show up early in training camp. Now we're all very eager to go against another team and see where we stand.
Carolina is a good early matchup for us, as they are a pretty basic team that plays football the old fashioned way. The Panthers, to put it more clearly, have a relentless, hard-hitting defense, to go along with a ball-control, smash-mouth running game on offense.
The defending NFC champs have a fierce front four on defense that I am sure will get our offensive line coach, Joe Bugel, as fired up to play against as the players themselves. Julius Peppers, Kris Jenkins, Mike Rucker and Brentson Buckner make up the Panthers' imposing front four.
With the one-two punch of Stephen Davis and DeShaun Foster on offense, we should be able to see how a critical component of our team, the defensive line, handles the tough task of controlling the line of scrimmage against one of the best rushing offenses in the NFL.
As all Redskins fans know, we had a real tough game with the Panthers last year down in Charlotte, losing 20-17 in the final minute. We were coming off a big win over Seattle, a playoff team, so the loss to the Panthers was pivotal in the 2003 season. A play here or there and we might have been able to win that one, and of course, the Panthers managed to make it all the way to the Super Bowl.
Carolina has made a remarkable turnaround after going just 1-15 a few seasons ago. Now they're respected as one of the hardest-hitting teams in the whole league. With a break here or there, we may be talking about them as the defending Super Bowl champs.
With it being so early in camp, there are a lot of questions that are yet to be answered about our football team. In just a few short weeks, many of those questions will have been answered and our identity for 2004 will have begun to take shape.
Louis Riddick is in his fourth season as a pro scout with the Redskins. Riddick played safety in the NFL for seven seasons. He was drafted by San Francisco in the ninth round in 1991 after an outstanding college career at the University of Pittsburgh and went on to play for Atlanta, Cleveland and Oakland in the NFL.
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