Yetur Gross-Matos needed to prove himself heading into the 2023 season.

And though the Carolina Panthers are winless, Gross-Matos isn't to blame. He's gone out and proved himself each step of the way. 

The fourth-year defensive stud has been one of the glimmers of hope in what has been a downtrodden season. And recently, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero spoke about the growth and early results from Gross-Matos after practice. 

“Yeah, I just think he’s been committed since Day One,” Evero said. “Since we’ve been with him, it’s been about his work, playing on the edge, playin’ inside. He knew he was going to have multiple roles to do that in. And he’s been committed to bein’ better.

“And I know he’s doing it in every phase of his life—in the classroom, in the weight room, on the field. And I’ve just seen a great commitment from the young man from since Day One to be the best version of himself. And now he’s seein’ the fruits of that labor.”

Heading into a matchup with the Detroit Lions, the Panthers said they want to find more playing time for Gross-Matos. 

“Absolutely,” Evero said “And he earned those snaps even before we started playing games, to be honest with you. He did a great job in training camp, and he was ready to go. And, as you know, the flow of the game in that first game was like—we didn’t really play a lot of snaps on defense. And just some of the personnel groups that we were working, didn’t work out that way.

“But the intention was to play him in that first game. But you can see now that the last three games is kinda what we wanna do defensively in terms of substitution pattern there.”

Gross-Matos played 54.5 percent of the snaps in Week 2, 56 percent of the snaps in Week 3, and 68.8 percent of the snaps in Week 4. He has nine tackles and 2.5 sacks on the season thus far. 

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