KSpan

Often enough yes, which is why the stat is what it is but hardly the sole reason the team gave up 24 or more 10 times, 27 or more 8 times. With better offense the defense us still average at best and nowhere near the , which is the whole point. Nothing about it was genuine "#2 defense" and little has changed, so expect more average play this year but with perhaps a few closer scores.

No one is expecting to stop all scoring, and few would expect a defense to hole a minor lead with no offensive support. However, anyone who came away thinking the defense was anything other than average at best must have only watched the first quarters as well.

I don't understand how anyone who actually watched several, if not most/all, of the games last year can honestly state that the defense deserves to be considered top-tier. There is no comparison to years like 2013 where they were legitimately fearsome, and while the offense sure didn't help things it's not like other teams struggled to move the ball at all. The defense wasn't bottom tier across the board but they were pretty average, looking solid in some ways and very exposed in others, and with Phil Snow still around I'm not sure where the argument that the strategy and scheming will magically improve is coming from. At least in the other phases people can put on the rose-colored glasses and hope for the best when it comes to change and McAdoo, Campen, Tabor, etc, but the defense had no such changing of the guard. They're poised to continue to be pretty average at best, good at times (particularly against any weaker competition Carolina comes across) and schematically abused by superior offensive minds in others. This '#2 defense' stuff is just silly.

Bingo. Were they the worst defense in the league, particularly when factoring in the offense? No. Were they legitimately a top-tier NFL defense? Absolutely not. This was an average-at-best unit that was bolstered by feasting on poor competition for a portion of the season and having low yards against, ironically, due to the poor offense.

Rhule is the head coach and is therefore responsible for making sure the team can perform strategically. Full stop. If an OC or DC isn't getting the job done, where do you think that knowledge/ability is supposed to come from? That's management 101 and a requirement of such a position in any job anywhere. Dude has shown himself to be entirely inept in this regard at the NFL level.

Yeah, no. The guy at the top is the one in charge.

Right, but that's 1 of 10. It takes a lot of failure to lead this category.

Carolina frequently had a strong first driven that resulted in some points. It was everything after that first drive that was Rhule-esque lack of strategy and inability to stay competitive.

Yeah but he wore Bills gear that one time.

Hopefully the head coach has stopped playing Tecmo Super Bowl as well.

Then what is gained by saying it at all?

Seasons like Darnold's 2021 would qualify as 'Holding the ladder.'

It goes beyond Rhule though. Rhule is a symptom of Tepper's incompetence and, arguably, arrogance. From the nonsense with Rivera and Hurney to being so fixated on Watson, Tepper has dug himself quite a hole and Rhule, no matter what the outcome this season, is only a part of that hole.

Of course he was, to some degree anyway; Rhule is a hack at this point in time and needed to give the appearance that he was doing something/had some kind of strategy. Considering that the offense got worse from there on out and STILL didn't run the ball like Rhule claimed he wanted to, it seems clear Brady took at least some kind of fall.

Was Brady dealt a tough hand with Rhule and the personnel? Yes. Was he also (predictably) predictable and overmatched by NFL defenses? Also yes. These things are not mutually exclusive.

And funny enough that outside of some outlier years and him being carried by generational talent, he's still an average football coach. Better than Rhule if we compare their first two years, sure, but his conservatism and lack of strategic vision always hampered the team, and he and the coaches are the major reason the team lost a very winnable Super Bowl. If Rivera is your metric, then your bar is too low, and Rhule doesn't even reach that.

I think they traded for him for the exact same reasons they traded for Sam - seemingly low cost (wayyyy lower for Baker) for a high draft pick that positions them to retain a quality QB is he can be coached up. If he flops, and this is the part where they messed up with Sam, they move on with no further mess.

Or it shows that they have been paying attention since the mastermind of the teams that have been 3-14 in one-score games since 2020 is still in place. Until he proves otherwise on the field, Rhule has 2 years of showing nothing indicating he's an NFL-caliber coach and it's completely fair to always have that 'but' at the end when analyzing the Panthers. Will that change this season? Perhaps. Until then though, to quote John Fox, it is what it is.

What is there to analyze? Seems pretty straightforward.

Would be really entertaining if they got a killer offer for Mayfield (relative to his cost) now that his salary is down and Carolina ended up trading him again, putting Sam back in the driver's seat. Won't happen of course, but would be entertaining.

At least this one has legitimately and singularly not sucked at points in the past. That's progress, right?

I'm pretty neutral on this whole thing, but not a huge gap between those two and some other pretty big names if just talking about interceptions in a 4-year window.

Rhule's still the coach, right?

While I was fine with not getting him at all, this salary is not prohibitive if he flops and the team sucks. Corral could still play just like he might've before and Carolina has someone who has shown way more than Sam. Bit of an eye-roll at Rhule, but a much more friendly move than their other boneheaded QB pickups.