25% of the way thru the season. What has changed for you?

[Icege]

and what hasn't?

I went into the season hopeful, but bracing myself for growing pains. Perhaps the biggest thing that is changing for me is Yetur Gross-Matos. He looked markedly improved in this game compared to limited snaps prior. We didn't have much of a sample size with him dealing with an injury, but if he keeps it up we can see this defense looking really good for a really long time. I was not impressed at the start, but the young man has plenty of season left.

What hasn't changed for me are questions surrounding our TEs, but Brady's system doesn't seem to utilize them much outside of catching over the middle of the field and running routes to set up downfield blocks for receivers. I've also been a staunch KK defender, but they need him to do a little more than eat up double teams to allow the younger guys 1v1s. We need him to eat when Brown gets him those looks for himself.

 

[DCR]

I thought the best we could do was 2-6 first half of the season ,4-4 second half .

That we had a lot of talented rookies on defense that would be hurt by mistakes .

Now i think we have a chance of making the play-offs and maybe winning the division,

but teams will have film on us now so we still need to improve to get there.

[Varking]

I thought our defense was going to kill us this year. We have been way better than last year. Phil Snow is doing a terrific job. 

[Jeremy Igo]

I figured we would lose a bunch early and squeak out a few wins late. 

 

Being 2-2 is not something I imagined would happen with this team.

 

So far, Matt Rhule is the fuggin coach of the year considering what he has had to work with. 

[jopie87]

I did not expect coaching to be this good this fast. This is a team learning together and getting better every week.

[Bigdaddy8523]

Defense is my surprise. I'm calling these guys the young Dogz!!!. I like the speed if we can improve at Lb we'll be in every game.

[t96]

Didn’t think D would allow less than 30 in any game honestly... they’ve been absolutely balling . 

[WarPanthers89]

I expected to go into every game this season knowing we would not be favored to win. With everything to overcome such as  the amount of young players, turnover, and new coaching staff without an offseason along with adjusting to the NFL. So far we have been competitive every single game and seem to be improving each week. This could be a team that no one wants to play at the end of the year if we continue to improve. Our future looks bright over the next 1-2 seasons if we continue drafting well.

[1of10Charnatives]

What’s changed for me is going from Cautiously optimistic about the coaching staff to enthusiastic supporter. If nothing else these guys are creative and adapt, and after 25 years of not seeing either as a Panthers fan, Sold.

[Paa Langfart]

Happyly suprised with Rhule and his assistants thus far this season.

[LinvilleGorge]

Phil Snow looks like a legit NFL DC. Maybe even a very good one. I did NOT expect that.

[ForJimmy]

Looks like we have a solid staff with several good rookies on defense for our foundation. The future looks pretty good.   

[Fox007]

Coaches have already proved themselves...figured we'd be 4-12 on a good year but we could(and probably should) be 3-1 which is pretty sick actually.

[top dawg]

I knew that our short term success would depend upon defense. I never believed that we would be as bad defensively as the Huddle faithful were crowing, but after the first game I was becoming as skeptical as anyone. Now that we've shown growth, I think we'll end up middle of the pack to good, as opposed to middle of the pack to bad: the difference between 6-10 to 9-7

Of course if we keep improving, 10-6 is not out of the question.