The Carolina Panthers have a massive game coming up on “Sunday Night Football” against the Detroit Lions. It’s the team’s first of three primetime games this season and the only one that will take place in front of the home crowd at Bank of America Stadium.

Not only that, it’s also the team’s first “Sunday Night Football” game since 2016 and this time the Panthers will be going up against one of the league’s top offenses with Jared Goff, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Amon-Ra St. Brown coming to town.

Ever since the NFL announced this matchup, the Panthers have known they’ll need a high-scoring game to leave Week 4 with a win. That challenge has gotten even harder after all of the mounting injuries across this roster, putting even more pressure on quarterback Bryce Young and this offense.

In theory, this should be a dream matchup for Bryce Young against the Detroit Lions

If this game forces quarterback Bryce Young to step up and shootout against the Lions’ offense, you couldn’t be a better matchup. Young, the NFL’s leader in passing yards through three games, is going up against the defense that has allowed a league-high 299.3 passing yards per game with the second-most passing touchdowns allowed (9).

Each one of the Lions’ games this season have been high-scoring games with Detroit scoring exactly 31 points in each contest while allowing a league-high 31.7 points per game and opposing quarterbacks have fared well against Detroit’s secondary.

In these kind of games, Young has previously risen to the occasion. Just look back to the two home games last season against the Los Angeles Rams, where Young and the Panthers managed to keep pace with an elite-caliber offense. And Young’s playing at an even higher level this season, even with everything going on around him.

“It’s like when anything goes wrong, he kind of thrives,” head coach Dave Canales said. “I have in my mind just practice reps, game reps where it’s a bad snap, look for something to happen. It’s put him in a mode. When things kind of go crazy and he just stays calm. He sees them as opportunities to be aggressive.”

Panthers’ offensive plan might lean away from Bryce Young having to be Superman

However, given all of the injuries and issues up-front with the offensive line going into this game, it’ll be asking a lot out of Young to lead this offense on his own, even if it’s something he’s shown he’s capable of doing in these kind of matchups.

The Panthers’ ideal plan for Sunday’s game isn’t preparing Young to go shot-for-shot with one of the league’s top offenses. Carolina will already have a hard task defensively after the Panthers placed both starting cornerbacks on the injured reserve. But, there is a way for Carolina’s offense (yes offense, not defense) to be able to slow down Detroit’s own offense.

“It’s obvious that they have an explosive offense and they have for a couple years now. But, really we just look inward,” OC Brad Idzik explained. “This is something that I want us to be able to hang our hat on. The things I want to address and make sure we get after this week is discipline football, taking care of the penalties so we’re ahead of the sticks, so we can run the football and we can play balanced football… We want to move the sticks, we want to keep the defense off the field. An explosive offense is great and I’ll always fight to get those explosives, but time of possession is not going to be a bad thing either.”

Finally staying ahead of the sticks and achieving a balanced run game goes beyond getting more production from Chuba Hubbard and using AJ Dillon more in the rotation, it mainly starts up-front and getting the offensive line on the same page.

Staying more balanced offensively with the play-calling and avoiding mistakes is something Canales has been harping on all season and we’ll see if it can finally come to life on Sunday night to help milk the clock and keep Goff and the Lions’ offense on the sidelines.

It’s a logical plan, but executing it is the issue and something the Panthers have struggled to do. If the Panthers can get the ground game going and allow Bryce Young to take advantage of this secondary in moments where it’s necessary, Carolina has a real shot to take down the Lions in front of the home crowd.