Fire Fox?

Here we are again. Once a marriage between an NFL fanbase and its coach reaches four or five years, it seems talk of divorce is always one disappointment away, and only goes away for good (meaning…four more years) with a Lombardi trophy.

Last year, talk of firing John Fox would have been laughed off as the dumbest idea this side of giving Jake Delhomme $20 million in guaranteed money following his monumental meltdown versus Arizona in January.

But that deal, and the Panthers’ disappointing 4-6 start this season, has Fox in hot water again, at least with the fans. They see their Panthers as the second coming of the 2001 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, needing only a change at the head coaching position to get them over the hump.

Fox isn’t a bad coach. The fact that he’s into his eighth season without a record worse than 7-9 on his resume proves that. He’s actually a very good coach, as proven by his 67-55 record after taking over a franchise in 2002 that had lost a then NFL record 15 consecutive games the year before. He has taken the team to its first ever Super Bowl and won five playoff games (four of those on the road) against just three losses. Do you think Detroit Lions fans would accept a record like Fox’s over the next seven years?
But sports is a “What have you done for me lately?” profession, especially in the hyper-competitive NFL, where the draft is designed to reign in success and give moribund franchises new life. That draft has been a huge part of Fox’s problem. His Panthers haven’t fared any worse than most franchises on draft day in terms of busts. It’s just that he hasn’t had a top 10 pick since his very first…defensive end Julius Peppers. That’s because his teams never dip below 7-9.

His detractors will point to Fox’s failure to develop a franchise quarterback. But once you get past the top four or five signal callers in the league, you’re only going to find guys with just as many warts as Delhomme, who oh by the way sports a 54-37 record as a starter. And of those top four or five QBs, four of them (Peyton and Eli Manning, Donovan McNabb, and Ben Roethlisberger) were drafted in the first round, and three were among the top three players chosen in the draft. That’s not even taking into account the long list of first round quarterbacks who flamed out in the NFL.

To blame Delhomme’s poor season on Fox may or may not be fair. After all, he and general manager Marty Hurney presumably didn’t offer Delhomme his huge contract at gunpoint. But to blame him for not having a Roethlisberger or Matt Ryan on his team to turn the offense over to is probably not fair. Again, had the Panthers ever slipped to 4-12 or worse, they would have had the capital to invest in a future leader. But they’ve never finished far enough out of the playoffs to find out. They’ve always considered themselves one or two players away from being competitive again. See the 2004 offseason, when they signed Mike Wahle and Ken Lucas and went to the NFC championship game, or last season, when they drafted Jeff Otah and Jonathan Stewart in the first round. That B-12 shot to the running game carried them to a franchise-best 12-4 record.

Panthers fans know all of this. But they’re antsy. They see the Steve Smith/Julius Peppers window of opportunity closing and closing fast, without a Super Bowl ring. They are tired of off-and-on success, even though it’s been eight years since they’ve tasted serious failure.

Some are anxious to exchange Fox for a proven commodity like Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan or Jon Gruden before teams like the Redskins swoop in and claim them. Others want to give a young coordinator or a proven college coach a chance. But what neither group realizes is that the proven commodity is already in house. John Fox is a top-10 coach. And he will make it to the playoffs again.

The question is, will it be with Carolina, or with someone else?