We’re only 9 games into the season and the Carolina Panthers have already matched their win total from a year ago. One huge reason for that has been the emergence of running back Rico Dowdle.
Over his last 5 games, Dowdle has rushed for 652 yards and 3 touchdowns with a staggering 6.33 yards-per-carry average. The Panthers have gone 4-1 during that stretch.
Last Sunday, they marched into Green Bay and shocked the Packers with a 16-13 win. Dowdle was the lead actor in this effort, picking up 130 yards and 2 touchdowns on the ground. No play was bigger than his 19-yard run in the final seconds to put the Panthers in position to kick the game-winning field goal.
However, this one play wasn’t just about Dowdle doing his thing. Instead, it was a combination of scheme, blocking, and even quarterback Bryce Young getting in on the action.
Here was the situation. The game was tied 13-13 and the Panthers faced a 2nd-and-10 from the 50-yard line with just 46 seconds left.
Carolina came out in 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs) and the Packers matched up with Nickel personnel (5 DBs):
This was a high-probability passing situation. And Carolina wanted the Packers to think they would be throwing the ball. But they had a run play called right from the start according to head coach Dave Canales:
“It was not a check. That was a called play.”
Rico Dowdle said that Bryce Young did a great job of trying to sell the pass pre-snap:
“Bryce did a little dummy cadence, came to me making it look like it was a pass play […]. He was just going over, acting like he was putting me in protection, just to kind of play mind games with the defense, but he was just telling me, still the same play.”
That likely contributed to the Packers staying in a defensive look that you’d see on an obvious-passing down.
As you can see on the back end, Green Bay played man coverage:
This was important because the run play Carolina had called was split-zone with tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders working back across the formation away from the direction of the run to block the back-side EMOL (End Man On the Line of scrimmage):
And that got Sanders’ defender (safety Evan Williams) to go with him, removing him from the play-side: