Five weeks won’t define the 2022 NFL season. It will give you a pretty good idea of how things are going to shake out, however.
That’s not enough time to do anything but point a franchise toward a playoff spot, but it is enough time to fire a head coach after multiple years of fielding the league’s worst passing offense. Poor Matt Rhule was asked to rehabilitate Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold and somehow made them worse. He was a flamethrower brought to clean up an oil spill, and after 38 games and 11 wins the Carolina Panthers were sick of burning.
