Quote:Panthers
A bit different...
I don't think the Panthers were
that bad when Ron Rivera took over. The main thing they lacked in John Fox's last two seasons was consistent quarterback play. After their play off defeat in 2008, Jake Delhomme regressed significantly and ended up on IR during 2009, but John Fox managed to coach them to .500 with Matt Moore as his QB. Following season they moved on from Delhomme and drafted Jimmy Clausen. He sucked. No wonder they ended up finishing 2-14 with a combination of Jimmy Clausen, Matt Moore, and Brian St Pierre under center. That being said, I put them in a similar bracket to the year the Colts finished with the first overall pick - a decent roster that simply lacked a quarterback. Put Matt Hasselbeck in the Panthers or Colts team and they wouldn't have finished near the first overall pick.
So in a sense, when they hired Ron Rivera and landed Cam Newton as their quarterback, there was a good chance they would turnaround quickly
if Cam Newton managed to make the jump from college football to the NFL. He has. In those first two seasons under Rivera and Newton, the Panthers finished 6-10 and 7-9 respectively. One thing to note is they blew 5 leads in 2011 and 3 leads in 2012. If they had held on to those leads they would have finished with winning records. They were competitive and
really close, not a title contender, but certainly a team capable of going .500 or better. Since then they have put it together and become one of the best teams in the league. That is a remarkable turnaround in a sense that they have gone from first overall pick to Super Bowl runner ups within five seasons. But it also shows the talent base they had to build on because that roster was not gutted like ours, it had pro bowlers on it, it had talented players on it. All they have done is added
more talent to it and boy have they kicked on...
Could we do the same?
Sure. We definitely have a talented roster with some potentially special players. The problem we have is that we keep choking, making stupid mistakes, and generally looking like a band of misfits. It shouldn't be that way and that comes down to Gus Bradley and his coaching staff. We currently sit at 0-3. We should be better than that. There is time for Bradley to turn it around if Khan stays true to his word that Bradley gets another year. But anything short of .500 this season - if Bradley lasts that long - should be seen as a failure. At the beginning I did say that what we need to do first is get to 8 wins, and anything we get beyond that is progress. That was my minimum expectation for this season - .500 - and it is still possible. That being said, I have doubts that Bradley is the man that will turn this team around. He is not as good a coach as Ron Rivera.
