Aug
23
Miami’s starting defense faced its first challenge of the preseason in its fourth, and final, possession of the game.
This possession came about thanks to odd circumstances. It began with Jamar Taylor’s interception, which could’ve been a pick-six; however, it was ruled that he stepped out of bounds at the 3-yard line.
On offense, Damien Williams took the handoff, and it seemed like he would score his third touchdown of the night to put Miami up 21-0; however, he was out of bounds. Joe Philbin challenged the call, as he thought that Williams had touched the pylon for the touchdown before getting knocked out of bounds, and the ruling was reversed—and called a touchback for Carolina as Williams lost the ball before touching the pylon or getting knocked out of bounds.
This gave Carolina the ball at its own 20, and the Panthers marched down the field, taking advantage of Miami’s secondary (sans Brent Grimes) to get to 1st-and-goal from the Miami 1-yard line.
Then the defense took over with four straight stops.
How did Cameron Wake feel about that? He told Adam Beasley of the Miami Herald: “It felt good, it felt good. We came out here, we had a big job, they got the ball down there and, as a group, we just said, ‘Hey, look, we’re going to treat this like a real game. You can’t let them in no matter what.’ All of the guys stood up and we turned them away.”
Despite looking lost for most of the drive, Walt Aikens and Michael Thomas came up big with each getting a tackle on the goal line, while the defensive line did a tremendous job of penetrating Carolina’s questionable offensive line.
It was encouraging to see, as before that drive Miami’s defense had only forced a turnover or a three-and-out. Not every drive will do that, and in order to evaluate the defense, you need to see how it responds when a team gets deep in Miami’s territory.
Based on this drive, the defense looks solid.
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