The Carolina Panthers are off to a sluggish start in the third season of the Matt Rhule era. And while the fans at Bank of America Stadium were quick to voice their displeasure with the product on Sunday during a 26-16 loss to the Arizona Cardinals — “Fire Rhule” chants audibly mixed with the more general booing — the best thing the Panthers can do is stay the course.
Sure, Rhule has won just 11 games in 37 tries. Yes, the Panthers offense is listless, and the lack of complementary football throughout Rhule’s tenure has been grating. But what’s the upside of canning a head coach during the first half of a season when the entire offseason was spent building the roster in his image?
Here are four reasons why firing Rhule fewer than three years into his tenure as Panthers head coach doesn’t make sense just yet:
The locker room
Panthers players are clearly frustrated with their 1-3 start.
However, the united voice is still there. Quarterback Baker Mayfield declined to answer questions that would cause a stir in the locker room on Sunday, choosing to put on an “us against the world” front. Mayfield’s teammates then backed the quarterback. What would that say if the overarching leader of that movement was suddenly shown the door?
Rhule still has the players believing (or at least, publicly buying in), and they haven’t started trading barbs behind his back. Rhule’s retention of the locker room spirit likely comes from the fact that eight of the players on the 53-man roster and 16-man practice squad (11.5%) played for him at the college level.
“It’s very important because we set the standard and we know what the standard is,” said Bravvion Roy, who played for Rhule at Baylor. “We have an expectation every week and our goal is to get it done.”
Backup quarterback P.J. Walker played for Rhule at Temple.
“At this point, we all believe in each other in this locker room,” Walker said. “We know who we’ve got in this locker room, and we know we have 13 more weeks, or whatever we got left, so we’re still in a good place in our division. We’ve just got to out there and execute on offense. The defense is playing lights out, so we’ve just got to execute on offense and do what we do.”
Given Rhule’s background as a college program-builder, he understands how to communicate with players. Veterans also seemed to have bought into his messaging, and that hasn’t changed through four games.
Right guard Austin Corbett, who won a Super Bowl ring with the Rams last season, doesn’t think the season is beyond saving. The veteran, now in his sixth NFL season, believes the issues the Panthers have aren’t difficult to fix.
“It hurts, right? All of our losses are close games, right? Just a thing here or there that we need to change and get some different outcomes,” Corbett said Sunday after the loss to Arizona. “With this pain, you’ve really got to break down every detail you can, and grow from it and learn and make those changes before it’s too late.”
Corbett also feels like the locker room remains in sync.
“I think the guys in the locker room — we’re the one’s in meetings, we know what’s going on,” Corbett said. “We know what it takes, we know how hard this game is ... It’s tough, but we’re the ones in the locker room, we’re the ones in meetings, we stick together all the way.”
Former Pro Bowl wideout D.J. Moore echoed Corbett’s messages of optimism and unity after the loss to the Cardinals.
“Take it one game at a time,” Moore said. “What are we? 1-3? Still got 14 games? ... Plus, we’re going to make playoffs, I don’t care. We’re just going to keep it pushing going week to week.”
Second-year cornerback Jaycee Horn showed support for Rhule when asked about how the head coach has helped keep the team on the same page during a turbulent start.
“Just emphasizing the importance of staying together,” Horn said. “When everybody is throwing stuff at us, you stand together. Just rallying and keep going, keep trying to get better every day. Keep striving to fix whatever’s broken, just try to go win the next one.”
The division
Like the Panthers, the rest of NFC South has gotten off to an underwhelming start.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the incumbent alphas of the division, are 2-2, tied at the top of the division with the Atlanta Falcons. Neither team looks dominant.
The Panthers are sitting one game outside of first place in the division, tied with the New Orleans Saints, over whom Carolina has a tiebreaker due to its Week 3 win. The rest of the NFC South slate has yet to be played, and those games are the most important on the schedule.
Coaching search
The Panthers can still get ahead of their coaching search while waiting things out.
If the Panthers don’t view someone like Ben McAdoo or Steve Wilks as a worthwhile candidate to replace Rhule in the long-term, then pushing an assistant up the ladder this early is meaningless.
Most head coaching searches begin in December or January. Making a move in mid-October, or even a little later, does nothing but move out a head coach that the organization once believed in. That could send the wrong message to potential replacement candidates, as those prospective hires could be worried about having a trigger-happy owner and front office. While veteran head coaches might be willing to deal with an impatient owner for a second chance, potential first-timers aren’t likely to aspire to join what they may view as a chaotic organization.
Most of the coaches who are fired early have either lost the locker room, done something to bring national shame to the organization — or both.
Rhule isn’t Jon Gruden, who was ousted by the Las Vegas Raiders after multiple emails with racist messaging publicly surfaced midway through last season. He’s also not Hue Jackson, who endured an 0-16 season and experienced locker room and coaching staff turmoil in his final, short-lived campaign with the Cleveland Browns.
There have been several coaches fired after 0-5 or worse starts, but the Panthers played in three tight games to start the season, winning one. The team’s most recent loss, to the Cardinals, was the only defeat by two scores or more. The Panthers’ three losses have been by a combined 15 points.
Head coaches like Chip Kelly and Mike Singletary were fired during the home stretch of seasons because owners and GMs wanted to fast track their search for their replacements. With nothing to play for, firing a head coach in December makes more sense.
The schedule
The Panthers haven’t fired Rhule as of Tuesday, so he is going to head into Week 5 as the team’s head coach when the team hosts the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers pose a tough but winnable matchup for the Panthers, and Rhule and Mayfield have the opportunity to bounce back at home before traveling to Los Angeles to face the Rams in Week 6.
That two-week stretch is notable, because handing the reins to an interim coach on the road in Week 6 would be a detriment to all involved.
Giving an interim head coach a week to prepare for the defending Super Bowl champions on a west coast trip essentially sets the team up for more of the same, because there’s little time to plan for a change in overarching strategy. Starting an interim reign with a home matchup gives the new coach more time to set his plan and execute it, because he doesn’t have to worry about a travel day ahead of the game. The home stadium is also a familiar environment for the potential replacement, making it an ideal setting for his first opportunity to lead the team.
With Tepper already inclined to give Rhule one more week (at least) to prove himself, barring a blowout loss at home against the 49ers, why would a failure on Sunday be the tipping point? Clearly, Tepper doesn’t think Rhule is beyond redemption, so giving him another quarter of the season to work his way out of a 1-3 hole is logical.
The Panthers going 3-1 or even 2-2 during the upcoming four-game stretch of 49ers, Rams, Buccaneers and Falcons would keep them in the division race. Going 1-3 or 0-4 during that stretch would be curtains for the franchise, and a good time to make the switch to another leader at 2-6 or 1-7.
But for now, those four games are relatively winnable. All four opponents are 2-2, just one game ahead of the Panthers in the win column.
Final thoughts
The NFL isn’t a patient business, and Rhule hasn’t lived up to his pre-hire hype from 2020. But the Panthers aren’t dead yet, and the players still seemingly believes in their leader, even if he has led them to mediocrity to this point.
Tepper and the Panthers wouldn’t benefit from firing Rhule now, unless they felt promoting from within could somehow make the offense suddenly competent. If the brass felt that way, the move would have been made after the loss to the Cardinals. Remember, Rhule isn’t the offensive play — caller, McAdoo is.
Firing Rhule now doesn’t make the offense better. It doesn’t really help upper management find his replacement, either, as there’s plenty of time for candidates to emerge or falter before January. Firing Rhule just to fire him might appease a vocal portion of the fan base, but it won’t suddenly fill seats or bring on a sense of hope to the roster.
When Tepper made the decision to stick with Rhule this past offseason, the clear choice was made to ride this thing out with him. Until the Panthers are eliminated from playoff contention or the locker room implodes, firing Rhule would only serve a superficial purpose.
Since Tepper will be paying Rhule, one way or another, seeing if the much-maligned coach can turn things around in a wild NFC is the best hand to play entering the second quarter of the season.
