Jeff Wolfson

Corners hold up despite lack of depth

by Dan Kolko View Comments

The Panthers don't have a stellar passing game even when Pro Bowl wide receiver Steve Smith is in the game.

When he's not, Carolina can't do much through the air.

But regardless of who the quarterback was or who the receivers were tonight, it was obvious that the Ravens' secondary played well in tonight's 17-12 win.

They held the Panthers to 180 passing yards despite Carolina throwing a whopping 40 passes, and snagged one interception when Cary Williams picked off Jimmy Clausen in the third quarter.

"I thought our coverage really stepped up," head coach John Harbaugh said. "I mean, our coverage was impressive. A lot of credit goes to [secondary coach] Chuck Pagano. Chuck's been working with our group, and there's been a lot made of it being a banged-up group, and all the issues we have back there, but every single guy, from the first guy to the last guy went in and played well.

"[They] played with discipline, they were in great position. I was just very impressed with what we did on the back-end."

With Domonique Foxworth, Fabian Washington and Lardarius Webb all out because of ACL injuries, the secondary was thin coming into the game.

In addition to the ACL triplets, Chris Carr saw very limited reps because of a hamstring injury. That left Travis Fisher, Cary Williams (who is battling a toe injury) and Prince Miller to get most of the reps at corner and nickel throughout the game.

Outside of a few long Panthers runs that got to the outside, that group held up well.

"The secondary as a whole played really well," Carr said. "We gave up a couple of runs that we're not used to giving up. We definitely need some corrections on those. It was one of those games where we might have gotten more looks if the weather wasn't so bad.

"We definitely could stop the run better, but once we watch the tape, we can see how well we played. I was proud of everybody."

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