LB Kuechly keys Carolina defense

The best moment for quarterback Cam Newton in his Carolina Panthers’ 31-24 home victory over Green Bay last week came when Packers linebacker Clay Matthews believed he had correctly diagnosed a play before the snap.

“It’s the wheel route, it’s the wheel route!” Matthews could be heard shouting.

Newton grinned widely and responded, “You’ve been watching film, huh? That’s cool. Watch this!”

Matthews guessed wrong. Instead of the wheel route, rookie running back Christian McCaffrey out of Stanford looped inside over the middle of the field and caught a pass from Newton for a 7-yard touchdown.

This type of exchange occurs in every game. But perhaps no player does a better job of correctly recognizing a play with presnap reads and communicating that to his teammates than Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly, who faces the Buccaneers and quarterback Jameis Winston today.

“He is the best that we’ve gone against," Tampa Bay coach Dirk Koetter said. “We’ve gone against him many times. … I think there [are] probably other players in the league that know what is coming, but he also verbalizes it and tries to get everybody else on board. But when he tries to get everyone else [on the same page], they don’t always get it. When you really look at the tape, sometimes they are all right, [and] sometimes if just one guy is off — like any play — then it doesn’t always help. But he knows your tendencies. There was a game a couple years ago when as soon as Jameis made the check, [Kuechly] was calling out the play, what our check was. We do have to be constantly on guard about trying to give him different looks and trying to change it up, but the guy is sharp."

The Bucs have to do more than change verbal and hand signals each time they play Kuechly.

“Usually you have to change things with division teams the second time you play them anyway," Koetter said. “But even within the game, if we are going to run something, maybe instead of doing it twice out of no-huddle we will do it once … and call it out of the huddle the second time."

Winston says he enjoys the chess match with Kuechly.

“A couple weeks back, we were talking about how people said our offense was predictable,” Winston said. “When you play a guy like Luke Kuechly, he is going to tell you what the play is. He knows what is coming. Your job is to beat him. He is going to be who he is. He is an amazing player. I love playing against him, so it’s going to be fun. But we’ve got to do what we do. One person can’t be able to determine how we are on offense. We’ve got to play because we know that defense over there is really good.”

A good part of this season’s evaluation for Koetter will be the progress of Winston and the offense. Since returning from his shoulder injury in Week 13, Winston entered Saturday tied for the most touchdown passes (seven) in the NFL and ranked second in passer rating (109.0) in that time, and in the top 10 in passing yards, completion percentage and yards per attempt.

If not for a Peyton Barber fumble at the 5-yard line and a missed field goal, the Bucs could’ve scored 31 against Atlanta last week. They lost 24-21.