Rookie RB Stewart's production has dropped off the last four weeks

But Fox isn't concerned with the team's first-round draft pick

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CHARLOTTE – You can blame it on hitting the rookie wall.

Or even his injured heel.

But for whatever reason Jonathan Stewart isn’t looking like the same running back that started the season for the Carolina Panthers.

In his last four games, Stewart has 111 yards on 38 carries, a paltry 2.9 yards per carry, with one touchdown. That’s a far cry from his first five games where he averaged 5.2 yards per carry (48 carries for 251) and scored four touchdowns.

On Sunday, he had seven carries for 21 yards against the league’s 30th-ranked run defense.

Meanwhile, starter DeAngelo Williams ran for 140 yards on 19 carries, his 7.4-yard average bolstered by a 69-yard touchdown run.

Coach John Fox, who'll go out of his way to defend his players when they aren't playing well, said he doesn’t think the injury or being a rookie entering the second half of the season is the problem.

“It's neither of those things in my opinion,” Fox said. “He did miss two days of practice this week. That never helps. He made some hard runs. Part of those (rushing) yards were his; there's no doubt the bulk was DeAngelo. It goes that way. Probably about a month people wanted him to be the starter. It's a long season, and we're going to need him and he knows it and we know it. It's nothing he's done wrong.”

Perhaps more concerning is how many times Stewart has failed to gain yards.

Of his 103 carries on the season, he was stopped for no gain three times and lost yards 17 times. Those aren’t great numbers for a guy who has a reputation of not being brought down by the first defender who hits him.

Clearly teams are swarming to Stewart.

One theory is that defenses could be keying on Stewart when he’s in the backfield, realizing that the Panthers tend to run the ball more than they pass it. And since they know the run is probably coming, it’s much easier to stop it.

Like most rookies, Stewart is still learning to pick up blitzes and the Panthers might not trust him in pass protection quite as much as Williams, a third-year pro.

Fox didn’t offer much in the way of explanations for Stewart’s unusually high number of carries that failed to pick up yardage.

“I don't look at those statistics,” Fox said. “He's made a lot of big runs for us, and we anticipate him making a lot of big runs for us moving forward. Statistically, (the media) were talking about the other guy a month ago. We don't look at stats except for that 'W.'”

Fox said it’s not a matter of Stewart being indecisive when he runs.

“I'm totally happy with Jonathan Stewart as well as DeAngelo Williams,” Fox said. “That's not changed.”

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