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Carolina Panthers’ Kyle Allen Is Quickly Gaining Poise At 23

This article is more than 4 years old.

At 23, the Carolina Panthers’ Kyle Allen is one of the NFL’s youngest starting quarterbacks and – six games into the season and heading into a bye week – has helped right a season that had all the earmarks of a lost campaign after just two weeks.

The year headed onto the shoals almost immediately as the Panthers opened up 0-2. They scored a promising 27 in a losing week 1 effort against the defending NFC-champion Rams, but the next week against the Bucs Cam Newton was noticeably ineffective as he labored through the hobbling effects of a foot injury. That injury, sustained in week 3 of the preseason against New England, came as the larger question of his pace of recovery from an offseason shoulder surgery was still being answered.

In week 3 of the regular season, Allen started in place of the injured Newton against the Cardinals in his home state of Arizona. He responded to the promotion by throwing for four touchdowns to lead the team to its first win of the year and just the second in its last 11 dating back to last season. Allen and the Panthers followed up that victory with three more, culminating with a convincing 37-26 win over the Buccaneers last week in London.

Allen played as an undergraduate for two seasons at Texas A&M before transferring to Houston, taking a requisite redshirt year, and then starting three games for the Cougars before being benched by then-head coach Major Applewhite in the fall of 2017.

The transfer and redshirt year, followed by the benching in Houston, didn’t dissuade him from entering the spring 2018 NFL draft as a junior. It appears to have dissuaded NFL teams from pursuing him, however, despite solid statistics over parts of three college seasons. That is increasingly looking like a mistake.

Allen went undrafted, was signed as a free agent with the Panthers in April of that year, and was later released before returning to Carolina’s practice squad in the fall. He garnered a week 17 start following injuries to Newton and backup Taylor Heinicke and delivered a win, the first in eight games for the Panthers.

The 6’3” Allen is quick to note that the Panthers’ success in the last four weeks has been the result of the efforts of many contributors, and the stats through week 6 back up his assertion. Christian McCaffrey could challenge the league’s all-time season scrimmage yardage record and currently leads the NFL with 618 rushing yards. He also has 305 receiving yards and two touchdowns through the air.

The Panthers’ defense leads the league with 27 sacks, the most in the team’s history through six games. As a whole, the Panthers have now won four straight games on the road dating back to 2018, the longest such streak in the NFL and the franchise’s longest road winning streak since 2015.

“We’re a really complete team. We’re playing complementary football right now,” said Allen, following last week’s win in London. He added a refreshingly succinct explanation as to why he’s improving – experience. “I think that it’s just that you experience a lot of things out on the field through different games,” said Allen.

“You’ve seen different defenses, different schemes. Different stuff that happens in the games…you’re just trying to absorb everything from an experience perspective and trying not to make the same mistakes twice.”

On one account – holding onto the ball while being tackled – Allen has looked like the newcomer to the starting ranks that he is. He’s fumbled a total of six times in his four starts, but in his last start held fast against the Bucs and didn’t fumble once.

Offsetting that propensity is an unmatched stat: Allen set an NFL record by going 5-0 in his first five career starts without throwing a single interception. He’s effectively compensated for an at-times loose grip when scrambling with the ball to a tight one when delivering it to his intended target.

The Panthers will return from their bye week to face a likely undefeated 49ers team on October 27 in San Francisco. The 5-0 49ers face the 1-5 Redskins this Sunday in Washington.

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