Ameer Abdullah vs. Chuba Hubbard: Who Has Edge in Panthers' Backfield?
By Matt De Saro
With Christian McCaffrey on the shelf again for the Carolina Panthers they have to figure out their backfield depth chart. As it stands their best options are Ameer Abdullah and Chuba Hubbard with Reggie Bonnafon serving as the backup to the backups.
In Week 14 the Panthers faced off against the Atlanta Falcons in what would end up being a pretty bad loss. Cam Newton was benched again and his replacement, P.J. Walker wasn’t an upgrade at all.
The Panthers did look good in the ground game but they were behind for most of the game and were unable to really get their crew going. Cam Newton led the team with 47 yards on 10 carries but the running backs did their job to chip in when asked to.
Ameer Abdullah saw the lions’ share of the snaps at 59 percent and was the primary option out in the passing game between the two. Abdullah saw 59 percent of the routes and was targeted four times compared with zero for Hubbard. However, despite seeing just 39 percent of the snaps, Hubbard managed to have six more carries than Abdullah out of the backfield with 10 compared to Abdullah’s four.
Hubbard also managed to do more with his touches with 33 rushing yards and a touchdown. His longest carry was for 17 yards and it was the team’s longest run of the day. Abdullah, on the other hand, saw just four carries for 16 yards while Walker rushed twice for negative five yards. Abdullah did manage to catch two of his targets for 17 yards, but was pretty ineffective on Sunday.
So, what does this mean moving forward for these two backs? Well, it seems pretty clear what their short-term plan is heading into Week 15. They will continue to have these two play to their strengths with Abdullah getting most if not all of the work on passing downs and doing a lot of blocking otherwise. When the Panthers want to get some work done on the ground they will turn to Hubbard. With a tough Week 15 matchup upcoming against the Buffalo Bills, Abdullah could be in for a solid performance with the Bills rushing defense. No matter which way you slice it, the best runner on the team is unfortunately their 32-year-old quarterback.