KSpan

Because defensive TDs are fluky no matter what. They can't be relied upon. And I'm not saying that we have to ignore it entirely - it was a good play by Luvu. I'm saying that the offense wasn't good enough to win without said fluky play, just like years past. Nothing has changed. No argument there that Jameis tried to gift several picks that Carolina didn't reel in. Dude just can't help himself.

It took a fluky (great play, but fluky) defensive scoring play to beat a poor Saints team even with 3 awesome receivers, a great running back, a good defense, and a good special teams (in your words). If you don't see the red flag in that then we can't help you.

Then the team's record would be an another incredibly weak mirage at 2-1 like 3-0 was last year.

Oh look, Chinn making another play at the LOS. Huh.

"Matt Rhule looks perplexed" Lolz.

Oh look, Chinn making a play at the LOS. Who could have guessed.

Norwell, Turner, Obada, Mayo... the anders collected a bunch of Panthers castoffs over there.

Not in Carolina, no.

"... that we're not good at some of the things we're really good at." Bravo.

Becoming? They're already there. That's one. I don't have the time but it would be interesting to see the entire game charted against this tell instead of Orlovsky's handful of plays vs this guy's one play.

Tepper coming out in his press conference and resetting expectations from 5 to 6 years said all there was to say about where his head is at. In listening to this again he parroted all of the excuses that Rhule probably tossed out, and it's even more disappointing to hear now that the season is here and we see where things are at.

A lot of former Panthers players were quite supportive of Hurney too. Doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of effectiveness.

On the one hand it seems a weird and unusual situation, but on the other hand he would be far from the first man to let his career ruin his family life.

Wtf was that defensive alignment and what was the corner doing? Whoever that was blew the easiest edge hold ever.

Personnel-wise the CBs and safeties are better on paper, but in terms of players actually developed there are none.

Unless they managed to extend the screen beyond where the frame appears, that looks fake since the dragon and its shadow are consistently going beyond the edge.

It's been 2+ years of it now and we've seen it time after time. You would even think that just sheer luck would bring a win, but here we are. Rhule just doesn't have it.

Exactly. Bit of apples and oranges here.

This 'Year 3 jump' stuff was always crap anyway, as his teams always tracked whatever they did from year 1 to year 2 and continued into year 3. He was never anywhere long enough to truly establish that he could maintain a program and never beat anyone ranked/that mattered... the hiring has always been ahead-scratcher to anyone with common sense regardless of if he was a media darling/hot new name/whatever. Only 2 games into the season so there's always time for a miraculous turnaround, but I think we all know what the odds of that are.