Scale of 1-10, how crucial of an offseason is this?

[hepcat]

I'm going to say 9. This is as important an offseason as 2001, where the moves the team makes will determine whether the team is a contender again or a bottom dweller for the next decade.

You see teams that just can't get out of the gutter like Buffalo, Detroit, to name a few. Carolina is right on the cusp of going that direction if some poor decisions are made this offseason.

I was talking with my friend, a Jets fan, and he mentioned back in the 90's how the Jets we're just a perennial joke until they made a big splash and got Bill Parcells to turn it all around. Quickly they became relevant and have been a contender most years in recent memory. He suggested Carolina should clean house, including GM Marty Hurney, and hire a top football guy either in an executive role or head coach/GM sort of thing. The only guy out there would really be Tony Dungy or Bill Cowher...in my opinion.

But I brought up the recent success of teams like Atlanta, Miami, and Baltimore. Each had a typically uncharacteristic down year and changed head coaches. Each saw immediate turnarounds by hiring up and coming NFL coordinators and a competent GM. As for college coaches, excluding Pete Carroll's 7-9 joke of a division winner, how many college coaches, in the last decade, have come to the NFL and had any degree of success? Nick Saban had a winning year with the Dolphins I think, but didn't make the playoffs. I'm not sure Jim Harbaugh will be as sure as a guy already coaching in the NFL. I expect the Panthers to hire an NFL coordinator as the next head coach. Probably a guy a lot like Fox was back in '02.

A rise from the bottom to the top can be extremely quick, the NFL has shown. But it's a fine line between 2-14 and 11-5, and hopefully Carolina doesn't become one of those teams stuck in the gutter.

[C47]

[The Saltman]

eleventy

[PantherBrew]

Threve.

[therealmjl]

10

[SgtJoo]

-Witty answer that doesn't fall neatly into the OP's 1-10 scale-

[ncguy2184]

10++++++++++++

[Jangler]

[Brooklyn Bully]

10...due to how JR treated this season. He has no choice but to put a better product out there.

[mwright350]

6.022x10^23

[justin6816]

first we need a coach and a cba before we can say how important this off season will be but when the cba has been made offical then I say it will be interesting to see what we will do but I say D-will will have to be number one on the resign list and we need to get rid of a wr and bring in a good cheap veteran that will be a mentor to our young wr core and will also help smitty out hopfully we can get a good coach to handle all of this and marty and jr let the new coach do his thing with players and fa player

[MrBubba]

So what's the number for the national debt now?? double it and there is your number.

[Mvp2014]

its as crucial as the last 2 offseasons, it just took a couple of years for front office to recognize

[TarPanther9180]

3.18 times pie