For the Carolina Panthers, Sunday's game against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints will be on the road.
For rookie wide receiver Brandon LaFell, however, it will feel a lot like coming home.
LaFell starred for four seasons at Louisiana State, about an hour from New Orleans in Baton Rouge, La. He played three collegiate games at the Louisiana Superdome for LSU and won all three - including a national championship.
"This is a home game for me,"
LaFell said.
What the Panthers need from LaFell Sunday is nothing less than a breakout performance. The Saints largely will follow the defensive game plan the first three opponents did against 0-3 Carolina - put eight men near the line of scrimmage to slow the run and always have two defenders keeping an eye on Steve Smith.
That will leave LaFell and fellow rookie David Gettis in single coverage a great deal of the time - coverage neither has beaten consistently. The two have alternated starting opposite Smith, with neither particularly distinguishing themselves.
LaFell has been bothered by a hamstring problem, but he badly wants to play in this game. He grew up in Houston, about 350 miles from New Orleans. So LaFell has a passel of relatives driving in as well as a number of college buddies from Baton Rouge - about 30-40 people in all. He's been working on getting tickets for all of them and said he's "well beyond my budget."
"But I can't wait,"
LaFell said. "I love playing in the Superdome. It's a good field - you don't have to worry about the weather. Of course, LSU was always treated like the home team there and it won't be like that against the Saints, but still."
LaFell (6-foot-2, 211 pounds) was the first of the three receivers Carolina drafted in April as the Panthers tried to replace Muhsin Muhammad. He has a modest three catches for 66 yards, but his 44-yard catch from Jimmy Clausen a week ago against Cincinnati was the longest Panthers play of the season.
"It was real nice to hit one of those,"
LaFell said, "because we've been trying to for the last few games. It kind of made everybody feel good about throwing the ball downfield a little more."
LaFell is upfront about the fact that the transition from college hasn't been simple. During 2009 at LSU, he scored 11 touchdowns. He hasn't scored yet in the pros.
"It's harder to get open on this level,"
LaFell said. "Nothing comes easy. The cornerbacks have such good technique, and everybody you play is faster and stronger than the cornerbacks in college. There are no 'pick-on' guys out there."
Smith, who badly needs LaFell or Gettis to emerge, said the rookies mostly need more repetition with him and the offense.
"I think chemistry develops as you make plays together,"
Smith said. "You can't learn by watching. You don't learn how to make a sandwich by watching somebody else make it. Until you do it and make your own mistakes, you don't learn."
LaFell knows the pressure will be on him to make some plays soon. The entire offense sometimes bottlenecks because other defenses don't fret about any Carolina receiver other than Smith.
He would love it to come against New Orleans, and would have no mixed feelings about such a game. Despite spending five years in Baton Rouge (he redshirted as a freshman), LaFell never supported the Saints.
"I've always been a Dallas Cowboys fan,"
he said. "And anyway, I can't stand all this losing. I don't think I've ever been 0-3 in my life. I don't ever remember losing more than two games in a row. I'm taking this very personally. And there's nobody coming to save us. We have to save ourselves."
That all sounds good. But LaFell, like the rest of the Panthers offense, needs to find the lifeboat soon.
