Are the Panthers playing afraid?

[electro's horse]

I certainly wouldn't describe the way the Panthers played on Sunday as confident.

[mc52beast]

Canales will probably be another guy who takes Tepper’s money and runs. He’s soft, he coaches soft and he basically lets the players run the team. Probably a great guy but not HC material. 

[HaricotVert]

I wouldnt describe what they are doing as playing football

[Doyle]

I've become this guy...

 

[Panthering]

They play afraid because they know that one mistake will doom the entire game due to the QB/coaching/everything. You can't play like that! 

[strato]

When I think back to Bryce Young’s debut the biggest reaction, of many incredulous reactions, was to his lack of urgency.

I remember being totally, well, shocked, I guess is the word. It was crystal clear I had no explanation or rationalization for it. 
He was still doing the crappy parallel to the LOS slow dropback. 

I think he has infected the whole team now. 
edit: at least the offense. I meant to say, I have become numb to it after years of it, I think, because it doesn’t look like that now it looks like what I am used to seeing on Sundays. I guarantee you, get him out of here and we get better. 

Edited September 29, 2025 by strato

[Dave Gettleman's Shorts]

idk, running HB draws on 3rd and 10 and punting inside the opponent's 50 screams playing scared

playing "not to lose" while getting blown out in the 1st quarter is insane

[L-TownCat]

1 hour ago, CRA said:

I mean, the Harbaugh brothers, Campbell,  Vrabel, etc are all coaching.  The NIL era kids really haven’t made it to the NFL yet 

I’m not against it at all.  Bring on a Tom Coughlin for all I care.

[Matthias]

One thing we have to respect about the offenses of the John Fox era and the Ron Rivera era, is they knew their identity.  For John Fox, he ran his offense through the run game, with Stephen Davis, Deshaun Foster, DeAngelo Williams, and Jonathan Stewart.  For Ron Rivera, it was basically the Cam show.  Yet with all these other coaches, they have no idea if they want to run or throw.  There is no identity. 

 

With Canales, you have good running backs, but Canales use them like side dishes to the main course.  Now if your main identity is through the pass game, that would be fine.  Yet as we see, Bryce sucks as a passer.  At best, he is a game manager (and I think he's worst than that.  We're talking a dinking and dunking passer)  So you really can't run the offense through Bryce, but we see Bryce throwing the ball 30-40 times a game.  If you ask me, it is more about the Panthers don't know their identity on offense, and the defense has a bunch of guys playing that shouldn't be on the field.

[CarolinaRideorDie]

This team is scared and soft and it stems from the HC. How the team plays is a reflection of the coach. Frank Reich and Canales are "good guys and always have a positive attitude." When someone talks about a culture setter and tough coach, people mention Dan Campbell, Aaron Glenn, Harbaugh, Tomlin. I have never seen Canales get animated on the sidelines or even argue calls against the refs. 

[ProcessBlue2]

3 minutes ago, CarolinaRideorDie said:

This team is scared and soft and it stems from the HC. How the team plays is a reflection of the coach. Frank Reich and Canales are "good guys and always have a positive attitude." When someone talks about a culture setter and tough coach, people mention Dan Campbell, Aaron Glenn, Harbaugh, Tomlin. I have never seen Canales get animated on the sidelines or even argue calls against the refs. 

To be fair Rhule did that all the time. And was a culture setter, but his culture sucked and he was an idiot.

[CarolinaRideorDie]

1 minute ago, ProcessBlue2 said:

To be fair Rhule did that all the time. And was a culture setter, but his culture sucked and he was an idiot.

Rhule was also soft and in over his head. The only coach (during Tepper era) that I remember playing tough hard nosed football was when Steve Wilks was interim coach. He ran the ball with authority, played tough defense, and demanded accountability from his players. 

[Jon Snow]

I'm not sure what they are afraid of. They are a bad team and are going to lose anyway so what is there to lose? Might as well throw caution to the wind and try to at least not get embarrassed by playing like they have.