The franchise needs to reboot and get back to their roots.

[hepcat]

We all know this season isn’t going to get any better. Bryce Young doesn’t have the physical tools to ascend to the next level, he’s too limited to elevate the offense, and it’s unlikely he will be the starter next year. I imagine the team will try to trade him for anything they can get in the offseason. 

It is likely they will need to clean house again after this season depending on how bad things get, but with the purpose of going full on defense and getting back to who the Panthers were when they were successful in the past. It’s time David Tepper stops forcing his will on the franchise and they get back to what they historically have done well.

Hire a defensive minded head coach. Draft defense in the first round for three straight years. Build the roster in spite of the QB. Get by with veteran journeymen and take shots on some young reclamation projects. Draft some late round QBs and maybe get lucky. But stop forcing the QB position, stop trading assets for QBs, and build the roster. 

There is no other path forward. Tepper has tried everything else except following the blueprint that made the Panthers even remotely relevant in the past. It’s this, or continue to be a bottom dweller until Tepper dies or sells the team. 

 

[tukafan21]

Completely disagree, in today's NFL, you should always be hiring offensive minded HC's.

It's much easier to replace good DC's than good OC's, and you're not going to be a good team if you have a defensive minded HC and a bad OC.

So when you go defensive minded for the HC, if you're lucky enough to have a successful season or two, you're then going to lose your OC and have to re-start things on that side of the ball again.  With an offensive minded HC, even if you lose your OC, you are still keeping the offensive scheme and continuity.

[Tbe]

We can be any kind of team. Defensive or offensive. We obviously need the players and coaches to do it.

The idea that an organization can only be one is really silly.

[mc52beast]

We had some defensive guy named Wilks and Tepper gave him the middle finger. Tepper sees other offensive guys doing well and wants what they have. He won’t stop till he gets one of his own.

[hepcat]

5 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

Completely disagree, in today's NFL, you should always be hiring offensive minded HC's.

It's much easier to replace good DC's than good OC's, and you're not going to be a good team if you have a defensive minded HC and a bad OC.

So when you go defensive minded for the HC, if you're lucky enough to have a successful season or two, you're then going to lose your OC and have to re-start things on that side of the ball again.  With an offensive minded HC, even if you lose your OC, you are still keeping the offensive scheme and continuity.

I mean I HOPE we can be lucky enough to even end up in a situation with a good offensive coordinator that gets plucked to be a head coach. That would mean this team finally had some success. So I’m going to just going to have to agree to disagree on all of that.

But overall the most important thing the Panthers are missing is leadership, which they haven’t had any true semblance of since Wilks was the interim head coach and especially not since Rivera was head coach. So offense or defense or whoever, get a quality leader in the big chair and let him build a quality roster of good players and men. It’s not happening right now. 

[tukafan21]

1 minute ago, hepcat said:

I mean I HOPE we can be lucky enough to even end up in a situation with a good offensive coordinator that gets plucked to be a head coach. That would mean this team finally had some success. So I’m going to just going to have to agree to disagree on all of that.

But overall the most important thing the Panthers are missing is leadership, which they haven’t had any true semblance of since Wilks was the interim head coach and especially not since Rivera was head coach. So offense or defense or whoever, get a quality leader in the big chair and let him build a quality roster of good players and men. It’s not happening right now. 

That's all fair too.

I'm just saying that if you have success with a defensive minded HC, you're much more likely to have some down years because of offensive scheme changes than you would be the other way around.

Teams can change defensive schemes and still have success year to year MUCH easier than offensively.

[hepcat]

4 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

That's all fair too.

I'm just saying that if you have success with a defensive minded HC, you're much more likely to have some down years because of offensive scheme changes than you would be the other way around.

Teams can change defensive schemes and still have success year to year MUCH easier than offensively.

That’s fair but I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. They need to find any semblance of something that works. They tried Matt Rhule the college guru, they tried Frank Reich the grizzled old veteran coach, and they tried the young up and coming offensive head coach. The next logical step is a defensive head coach, hopefully one respected for being a good leader. 

It is not likely this team is going to find a franchise QB any time soon either, but they’ll likely have a high draft pick again in 2026 and who knows? Maybe one of these QBs coming out this year takes a step up. Or maybe they wait until 2027. I just hope they don’t force the QB position anymore. The last two (Darnold and Young) they gave up assets to get and it backfired both times. At least Darnold was on the cheaper side and showed more potential than Young did. Darnold has a great arm, Bryce can barely throw 15 yards with any velocity. 

I guess I’d rather the Panthers go back to something that has worked in the past than to keep trying to force themselves into being someone they clearly aren’t. 
 

[SmokinwithWilly]

2 minutes ago, hepcat said:

That’s fair but I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. They need to find any semblance of something that works. They tried Matt Rhule the college guru, they tried Frank Reich the grizzled old veteran coach, and they tried the young up and coming offensive head coach. The next logical step is a defensive head coach, hopefully one respected for being a good leader. 

It is not likely this team is going to find a franchise QB any time soon either, but they’ll likely have a high draft pick again in 2026 and who knows? Maybe one of these QBs coming out this year takes a step up. Or maybe they wait until 2027. I just hope they don’t force the QB position anymore. The last two (Darnold and Young) they gave up assets to get and it backfired both times. At least Darnold was on the cheaper side and showed more potential than Young did. Darnold has a great arm, Bryce can barely throw 15 yards with any velocity. 

I guess I’d rather the Panthers go back to something that has worked in the past than to keep trying to force themselves into being someone they clearly aren’t. 
 

Reich never really got a shot. Dave drafted his QB. Frank lost interest immediately because he was stuck with a QB he didn’t want. Canales, who knows. He may be a good coach, but again, Bryce is so limiting can you even evaluate him? Even having a defensive coach hasn’t worked in the past. We’ve never had back to back winning seasons. 

[tukafan21]

1 minute ago, hepcat said:

That’s fair but I think you’re putting the cart before the horse. They need to find any semblance of something that works. They tried Matt Rhule the college guru, they tried Frank Reich the grizzled old veteran coach, and they tried the young up and coming offensive head coach. The next logical step is a defensive head coach, hopefully one respected for being a good leader. 

It is not likely this team is going to find a franchise QB any time soon either, but they’ll likely have a high draft pick again in 2026 and who knows? Maybe one of these QBs coming out this year takes a step up. Or maybe they wait until 2027. I just hope they don’t force the QB position anymore. The last two (Darnold and Young) they gave up assets to get and it backfired both times. At least Darnold was on the cheaper side and showed more potential than Young did. Darnold has a great arm, Bryce can barely throw 15 yards with any velocity. 

I guess I’d rather the Panthers go back to something that has worked in the past than to keep trying to force themselves into being someone they clearly aren’t. 
 

Ron Rivera

That's why you don't go defensive, because if they turn things around like you hope, they're too good of a coach to fire but not bad enough to warrant being fired.

Defensive minded HC's usually only work when you have a true elite QB paired with them, so the changing of OC's doesn't hurt as bad, such as the Bills with McDermott and Allen.

Since the turn of the Century, the following are the only SB winning HC's who come from a defensive background....

Belichick, Harbaugh, Tomlin, Cowher, and Carroll.

So sure, if you're telling me we're going to hire a HOF lock of a HC, then I'm in.  But if you don't land a defensive minded HC like that, you're not going to be consistently successful.

[hepcat]

1 minute ago, tukafan21 said:

Ron Rivera

That's why you don't go defensive, because if they turn things around like you hope, they're too good of a coach to fire but not bad enough to warrant being fired.

Defensive minded HC's usually only work when you have a true elite QB paired with them, so the changing of OC's doesn't hurt as bad, such as the Bills with McDermott and Allen.

Since the turn of the Century, the following are the only SB winning HC's who come from a defensive background....

Belichick, Harbaugh, Tomlin, Cowher, and Carroll.

So sure, if you're telling me we're going to hire a HOF lock of a HC, then I'm in.  But if you don't land a defensive minded HC like that, you're not going to be consistently successful.

I mean sure, I don’t expect to land a HOF level coach. But they need to get a head coach who can at least instill a winning culture. Maybe Reich could have done that but like others have said and we all suspect, Bryce probably wasn’t his choice at QB and he checked out. I think when we heard he wouldn’t change his scheme to fit Bryce we all knew what that meant. 

So the bigger problem we have is, how do they instill a winning culture with an owner who doesn’t listen to the people he hires? It won’t even matter who they get. I’m not even sure if they did magically hire a future HOF caliber coach that Tepper would railroad them into oblivion. 

[Gapanthersfan]

This team needs a bridge coach to return some sort of GAF. A winner would be a bonus, but this team is so damn far down in the well that they don’t even know what dignity looks like.

Y’all just need to face it, NOBODY, no coach, coordinator or position coach who is worth anything wants ANYTHING to do with this ish. The blow it all up and burn it to the ground for some hero to come in and save us from our owner is a complete fallacy. It’s not going to happen. Tepp will have to roll up a Brinks truck and drop some more propaganda. 

The rebuild approach that works for other teams in the NFL will not work here. We have the worst owner in the NFL, and it’s not even close. Who TF wants to come to CHARLOTTE (!) and be the head coach under Tepper. 

The only thing that will spark any momentum will be the typical Panthers lucky win streak to finish the season, fire the head coach and hire someone who is not afraid to tell grown ass men that they’re losers (but Tepp doesn’t get along with those types). Rinse wash and repeat. Hopefully we also luck in a franchise QB in the process, a la Delhomme and Newton. 

[Gapanthersfan]

10 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

Ron Rivera

That's why you don't go defensive, because if they turn things around like you hope, they're too good of a coach to fire but not bad enough to warrant being fired.

Defensive minded HC's usually only work when you have a true elite QB paired with them, so the changing of OC's doesn't hurt as bad, such as the Bills with McDermott and Allen.

Since the turn of the Century, the following are the only SB winning HC's who come from a defensive background....

Belichick, Harbaugh, Tomlin, Cowher, and Carroll.

So sure, if you're telling me we're going to hire a HOF lock of a HC, then I'm in.  But if you don't land a defensive minded HC like that, you're not going to be consistently successful.

Ron worked until Cam’s shoulder got smoked. It was the sentinel moment that doomed the best run this franchise has ever seen. It was going swimmingly. Cam had put in work on his touch and mechanics. We had the most complete defense this team had ever had and a coach they believed in… and then it all went to ish. 

[frankw]

46 minutes ago, mc52beast said:

We had some defensive guy named Wilks

This legend needs to come to an end. He wasn't saving us. Nobody can overcome the meddling of the Tepper's anyways.

[TN05]

50 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

Completely disagree, in today's NFL, you should always be hiring offensive minded HC's.

It's much easier to replace good DC's than good OC's, and you're not going to be a good team if you have a defensive minded HC and a bad OC.

So when you go defensive minded for the HC, if you're lucky enough to have a successful season or two, you're then going to lose your OC and have to re-start things on that side of the ball again.  With an offensive minded HC, even if you lose your OC, you are still keeping the offensive scheme and continuity.

We’ve tried three offensive minded head coaches in a row and none of them have worked. We also switched to the more popular 3-4 and that didn’t work either.

every heard of the blue ocean strategy? That’s what we were until Tepper. It worked okay. Then we decided to copy everyone else and it failed horrendously