Greg Auman
NFC South Reporter
Why did the Panthers fail so completely in 11 games under Frank Reich?
Carolina seemed poised for a step forward in 2023, with an experienced head coach, an all-star staff, an easy division and a veteran roster built around the kind of promising quarterback you overpay to move up and draft with the No. 1 overall pick.
The only thing that played out as expected was how bad the NFC South has been, and the Panthers somehow still found a way to stay at the bottom of it.
Now that Carolina has moved on from Reich — special-teams coordinator Chris Tabor will serve as interim head coach — all that’s left is to exhume a team with a 1-10 record and no first-round draft pick to show for it come April.
“There’s a heart-pounding disappointment in not hitting the marks that we needed to hit to keep this going and try to get it turned around,” Reich told The Charlotte Observer on Monday after his firing. “It hurts me for the guys, the team, the coaches and the fans.”
There’s so much more to Carolina’s struggles than choosing the wrong quarterback with the top pick in April, but No. 2 overall pick C.J. Stroud has been electric for Houston, even an MVP candidate, and no rookie has gotten a vote for the Associated Press MVP award since Dan Marino in 1984. Bryce Young, who went 23-4 as a starter at Alabama, has known little in Carolina besides deficits on the way to losses. The Panthers have had the lead for just 18.2% of their games this season, and only 13.6% in the second half.
You can argue the single most important part of this season was to develop Young, and it’s hard to see much of that. He has nine touchdown passes in 11 games, and all of them came in losses, six of them when trailing by at least two scores. In terms of moments he’ll look back on positively, he has the game-winning drive for the field goal to beat the Texans in Week 8 — 5-of-6 for 50 clutch yards — and very little else.
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/what-went-wrong-how-panthers-1-10-struggles-led-to-frank-reichs-firing
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Publish date : 2023-11-27 21:07:13
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