The Carolina Panthers, who were 3-0 to start the season, have now fallen into a little rut. But even with back-to-back defeats, and not as many backsides of opposing passers hitting the turf, the defense remains the league’s most suffocating unit.

ESPN Analytics, now through five weeks of play, still has the Panthers atop the heap in their pass rush win rate statistic. The metric measures “how often a pass-rusher is able to beat his block within 2.5 seconds.”

As a team, Carolina has met that requirement 57 percent of the time. Right behind them in second sits the Cleveland Browns (56 percent) followed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (55 percent), Philadelphia Eagles (51 percent) and Pittsburgh Steelers (50 percent).

Just as the rest of the major sports world, football has embraced a love affair with advanced stats and metrics. So many now believe pressures, not sacks, stand as a more accurate indicator of how well a defense rushes and affects the passer.

Despite, again, a pair of rough weeks, the Panthers are still on that throne despite falling to third in sacks. After pacing the NFL with 14 takedowns through the first three weeks of play, they’ve added just two more to that total between their meetings with Philadelphia and the Dallas Cowboys.

Heading this attack, by the way, is outside linebacker Haason Reddick. The fifth-year veteran not only leads the team with 6.5 sacks, but finds himself in the upper ranks of pass rush win rate as well.

Reddick currently ranks seventh amongst all edge defenders, having gotten past his blocker within the 2.5-second mark in 27 percent of his tries.

And if the Panthers fail to lock him up before season’s end, the soon-to-be free agent will also probably have teams calling him up within 2.5 seconds of the opening bell this offseason.