CHARLOTTE — The Panthers are still looking for answers on third down, which is clear from their pass-rush numbers.

They're 30th in the league with 5.0 sacks in four games — with 2.5 of the sacks coming from down linemen (with 308-pound Jayden Peevy leading the team with 1.5) and 2.5 of them from the outside linebackers, which is where most of the pressure generally comes from.

But for defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, the problem with the pass rush isn't what they do on third down as much as the two before it.

"It's a work in progress," Evero said when asked about the outside linebacker group. "You know, we are more concerned right now about trying to get ourselves in more favorable pass-rush situations. Those guys are doing a good job on the base downs, but the one thing that we haven't done a good enough job of is getting ourselves into third-and-longs. So, we're playing a lot of third-and-mediums, which the ball's coming out so fast that you're not going to get a chance to get a great rush and really evaluate.

"And so, our emphasis has got to be better on early downs to see what we can do as a rush group along those lines."

The numbers through four games confirm Evero's thesis. They're not doing badly on third-and-longs; they're just not creating enough of them.

Panthers opponents are averaging 5.9 yards to go on third down this season, which is 29th in the league.

They've only created 14 plays of third-and-7 or longer, which is 31st in the league. They've had 19 plays of third-and-1-through-3 (fourth-most in the league) and 20 of third-and-4-through-6 (second-most).

So, to Evero's point, if they created more third-and-long chances, the ones more favorable to pass-rushers, the pass-rushers ought to improve.

"That's been our whole thing all year long," veteran outside linebacker Jadeveon Clowney said. "Just trying to figure out a way to stay out of third-and-3 or less, third-and-4 or less. And I think that's the difference between the great defenses and the OK. It's hard for guys to go third-and-7-plus in this league. Third-and-3, you've got plays for it. It's hard to draw plays with third-and-7-plus, and you got to figure out a way to get them in this situation where it's now third-and-3; that's all you've got to do."

Clowney was brought here to make impact plays against the run and pass. His ability to set edges in the run game separates him from a lot of pure pass-rushers, but he had 9.5 sacks last year, so he can clearly do it. He's had moments of pressure this season, but the ones that get away still bother him. He went into intricate detail about last week's struggles to get to Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, with a particular near-miss in his mind.

On that third-and-5 play in the early fourth quarter, Clowney was pressuring when safety Xavier Woods got an interception. After that play, the Bengals only threw one more pass the rest of the day as they tried to bleed the clock. Clowney was being blocked by rookie tackle Amarius Mims (6-foot-8, 340 pounds), the first-rounder making his first career start. But on that play, Clowney shot inside and had hands on Burrow before he escaped.

"You saw how I laid on the ground after that play; it's very frustrating when you do all the hard work, beating the tackle and getting back there and let the guy get out of your hands," Clowney said. "It's very frustrating. I feel like I could have had like three or four sacks right now if I just finished the tackle. But you've got another week to get better, another week to work on that. So I've got a lot of season left to make up for that."

Clowney said he realized too late that the massive Mims might struggle with change-of-direction.

"It took me too long to really figure out his game," Clowney admitted. "Later on in that game I did beat him, but it just took me too long to figure that out. I should have figured that out earlier."

When Evero was asked about Clowney's impact this season, he said he's been "fine." Clowney also said he could do more, with just a single sack in Las Vegas (he's also promising a better sack celebration than the dance his teammates teased him about there).

"He's played fine; you've seen a sack production or the rush production, I should say," Evero began. "He's missed a couple of sacks, but he's an effective rusher, that's for certain, and he's a playmaker. It's our job, it's my job to get him in positions where those traits are being featured more often than not."

Of course, playing a quarterback like Burrow makes it that much harder. For a top-level distributor with Pro Bowl-level targets on either side (wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins), the chances for a pass rush will be somewhat limited anyway. Against a more mobile passer like Bears rookie Caleb Williams, they could do more different things to create pressure. A year ago, Frankie Luvu became that player the Panthers used as a blitzer and in other ways. They haven't found that person yet this year as they continue to work toward an identity on defense.

"You're always thinking about packages and grouping people together, not only from the standpoint of one-on-one rushes but also people working together in the rush plan," Evero said. "You know, I don't want to get into the details about it just because it's game-plan-specific, but yes, that's always something that we're keeping an eye on."

Clowney knows he's viewed as the focal point of the pass rush, but being successful in that area takes all 11 of them.

"The key, to me, is all four people staying in their lanes and everybody rushing as one," he said. "It's like holding a book, closing the book on the guy. One person don't do their job, he can escape out the B gap or anything, and you really don't want him running out that B gap, because, like I said, he can make a lot of plays with his legs. And so guys got to rush accordingly and don't run past the quarterback in the rush game and opening up the lanes for him to just create more plays with his legs."

And that is necessary before they get to third downs, which is why Evero has been harping on first and second all week.

"I'm going to kind of go back to what I said about the early downs," the coordinator said. "So much is made about third down and making plays and getting sacks and the fumbles and interceptions and all that stuff. But to get yourself to those positions, you've got to be better on early downs. So I actually have a higher value on first down because we need to, if we limit them on first down, we're going to be playing a lot of pass downs, and that's when those takeaway opportunities are going to present themselves.

"So we've got to be better on early downs, we've got to plan better, I've got to do better. We've got to play better, and we all understand that."