If not for Patrick Mahomes going berserk, Christian McCaffrey would’ve likely taken home the Offensive MVP Award after going HAM in his second played season at the NFL level. The former Stanford Cardinal was the Panthers offense last season. Though his 1,098 rushing yards ended up being the sixth most gained overall, he added another 867 yards through the air and 6 TD to finish the season with nearly 2,000 combined yards and 13 total saunters into the end zone. Linemakers at online sportsbooks expect him to surpass the 1,000 yard barrier on the ground once again, but that could be a hard thing to do as explosive the up-and-coming wide receiver corps looks to be with both DJ Moore and Curtis Samuel looking to take the next steps in their young careers. But if Cam Newton’s shoulder isn’t totally healed from going under the knife in the offseason, Carolina’s offense just might depend upon No. 22 going HAM once again.
Total Rushing Yards: 1000.5
Offensive Philosophy
Norv Turner called for running plays just over 41 percent of the time while looking to the air on nearly 59 percent of the Panthers’ play calls. Both outputs found Carolina ranked in the middle of the pack. However, things look to be on the up and up heading into the regular season in those regards, and it has everything to do with the improvements upper management made across the offensive line both in free agency and via the draft.
Matt Paradis was an enormous offseason signing as he’s proved to be one of the best run and pass blocking centers the NFL has to offer. The selection of Greg Little in the draft could see this unit take enormous steps forward over the course of the season should the rookie adapt to the faster pace of the NFL sooner rather than later. As it stands right now, Carolina was tabbed the 10th best offensive line in the league per Pro Football Focus with a strong possibility of finishing the year ranked much higher.
Carolina Panthers Football Schedule
Week 1: Rams
Week 2: Buccaneers
Week 3: @Cardinals
Week 4: @Texans
Week 5: Jaguars
Week 6: @Buccaneers
Week 7: Bye Week
Week 8: @49ers
Week 9: Titans
Week 10: @Packers
Week 11: Falcons
Week 12: @Saints
Week 13: Redskins
Week 14: @Falcons
Week 15: Seahawks
Week 16: @Colts
Week 17: Saints
Schedule Breakdown
It doesn’t matter how easy or hard the Panthers schedule is when it comes to Christian McCaffery’s ability to do his job – the kid is gamescript-proof! If opposing defenses decide to load the box and dare the Panthers to run, Newton can quickly audible to a dump-off instead. If the front-seven is playing back, RUN-CMC will have no problem accruing the 5.0 yards per carry tallied last season; especially with his front wall dramatically improved. Regardless, Panthers’ running backs as a whole are sure to enjoy the upcoming schedule if the opponents lined up continue to play to the stat outputs churned out a season ago.
In terms of schedule strength versus running backs, Carolina’s checks in at No. 10 with 32 being the toughest. Two of the worst run defenses from a season ago reside in the NFC South in Atlanta and Tampa Bay, and he gets to run up against both of those units twice! Also in the mix is a run-in with the Arizona Cardinals league-worst run defense that will be playing in a number of video-game type matchups with Kingsbury’s “Air Raid” in tow. Another aspect of the schedule that has me bullish on McCaffrey’s ability to go nuts once again is the fact that seven of the team’s eight road games take place in a dome or in warm climates. That certainly bodes extremely well for the Panthers’ Pro-Bowl running back to accumulate another huge season on the stat sheets.
The Bets
The Panthers having other options offensively has been baked into McCaffrey’s rushing yards prop at top rated sportsbooks. His impost currently resides at 1,000.5, but his total rushing+receiving yards prop only comes in at 1,800.5. Surprising considering he combined for 1,965 yards a season ago and is only likely to be better in 2019-20 entering his third season. While the first six games have tough spots against the Rams, Texans and Jaguars, it’s also got juicy matchups against the Cardinals and Buccaneers twice.
Keep in mind, No. 22 was still able to go for nearly 2,000 yards combined even though he did next to nothing the first two weeks of the season and only made four carries and caught one pass in the meaningless Week 17 game versus the Saints. So, McCaffrey was able to accrue a bulk of his stat output in only 14 games! Christian McCaffrey is one of the more highly clamored for running backs in the first round of fantasy football drafts. That’s because he’s only just started to scratch the surface of becoming the best the league has to offer.
Come this time next season, his rushing yards prop will be heavily inflated and offer no value – bank on it now!
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