SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Matt Rhule enters his third season as the Carolina Panthers head coach appearing quite confident for a man who Las Vegas oddsmakers have deemed the heavy favorite to be the next NFL coach to be fired.
If that happened, it wouldn’t be the first time Rhule has been dismissed from a coaching job. But the coach firmly believes that the Panthers will turn a corner in 2022, just as his college teams at Temple and Baylor did in their third seasons.
And going 9-8 — even though that would constitute Carolina’s first winning season since 2017 — is not the goal.
“We want to take huge steps and do things that people don’t think are possible,” Rhule told me. “That’s our message here.”
On Wednesday, I sat down with Rhule in a quiet room on Wofford College’s campus for a wide-ranging, one-on-one interview for The Charlotte Observer. Rhule discussed his quarterback battle, his iffy job security, being booed at Bank of America Stadium and the happiest year of his life. The following Q and A is edited for clarity and brevity.
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— Scott Fowler: You just traded for former Cleveland QB Baker Mayfield, who joins Sam Darnold, rookie Matt Corral and PJ Walker as the team’s quarterbacks. What do you think about your QB situation now?
— Matt Rhule: I was very pleased with Sam in the spring. I felt like one of the reasons why I brought in Ben (new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo) was that he’s coached Aaron Rodgers, he’s coached Eli Manning. So he has a great picture of what it takes to not just be an offensive coordinator, but to get those guys to play at that level.
And I think you saw the spring, I saw signs that Sam was really developing. At the same time, when the chance came open to get a guy like Baker, it would be irresponsible of us not to put as many people in that room as possible. We have a long road ahead of us here, in this camp, but I’m hopeful that both guys, and Matt and PJ, will all improve. At some point it will become clear that, ‘Hey, this player gives us the best chance to win.’
— SF: Toward the end of last season, as you guys were finishing a 5-12 season with seven straight losses, you said you believed your method was “1,000 percent working” but you knew that “no one could see it, and I apologize.” I wonder if you’ve tweaked your process at all heading into camp, and what prompted you to say that at the time?
— MR: I believe that we are building a really good roster and that roster is figuring out how to play together and play the way we want to play. On defense, I’m proud of what they’ve done. They went from 24th to 16th and then to second (in total yards allowed in 2021).
We took a step back offensively and that was bothersome. But I could see the pieces. I can see all the good things that were happening, when maybe from the outside it looked chaotic. On the inside, I didn’t see that. I saw a lot of loyalty. I saw a lot of good conversation.
That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t miserable that we weren’t winning. And when I say “process,” all I mean is I have a goal. Everybody has a goal: It’s just what steps are you taking. We very purposefully addressed the defense early on (after Rhule was hired in 2020). And so when you do that, maybe you don’t address some other areas. I felt like this year we were able to address all of them. And so that’s why I’m happy with where we are. We’ve made a lot of progress.
— SF: After going 10-23 in your first two seasons, do you feel like you have to win this year to keep your job?
— MR: You know, I don’t think that way. The minute you start thinking that way, you start thinking about the least acceptable thing. And when I stand up in front of a team, you know, we are working to win championships, not to do the bare minimum.
I couldn’t be more thankful for our owner’s support. Dave (Tepper, the Panthers owner), at the end of last year, communicated with me every day. He communicates with me now. We have to make improvement.
But in this building, we don’t want to just do the bare minimum. We want to take huge steps and do things that people don’t think are possible. That’s our message here. So if I start talking about anything else, I’m kind of lying to the players in my mind, and I’m never going to do that.
— SF: Which Panther players do you rely on the most to take the pulse of the team?
— MR: Shaq Thompson and Christian McCaffrey. There are a lot of guys I can go to, but those two are elder statesmen (Thompson is 28, McCaffrey 26) who have had a lot of success and just want to win. They’ll tell you what needs to be said.
— SF: Have you ever been fired from a job before?
— MR: Yes. Our staff was let go at Buffalo (the college team, not the NFL one) in my second coaching job (in 2000). I was a graduate assistant, and then had become the defensive line coach, with a salary and a W-2.
I’ll never forget it. We came home at 3 a.m. after losing to Northern Illinois, 73-10. And the head coach had a meeting and said, “They’re going to let us go.”
I remember telling my wife, “I don’t have a job.” We had about two games left. And my Dad — an old coach and also a minister — told me, “You’re going to be tempted to pick up the phone and making call and all those things. But however you coach these next two games is really who you are as a coach.” And that’s affected me.
I ended up taking the next two semesters and finishing my Master’s degree and then taking a step back and going on to be a grad assistant at UCLA where I met and worked for Phil Snow (now the Panthers’ defensive coordinator). I was making $788 a month in L.A. and my rent was $1,400. Julie, my wife, went out and got a job in sales, and she killed it so that we could make it work. We had a little one-bedroom apartment. No kids yet. It’s funny, but we look back on that as some of the best times of our lives.
— SF: Speaking of that, what was the happiest year of your life?
— MR: I’d say the time between the summer of 2012 and the summer of 2013. I was coaching with the New York Giants at the beginning, which was really good for me to get some pro football experience. My wife finished culinary school and that was such a great achievement for her. Her mother was still living. My mother had beaten breast cancer previous to that.
So we still had all our family together. And at the beginning of Giants training camp, Julie got pregnant again. When my oldest child, my son Bryant, was born (while Rhule was an assistant coach at Western Carolina), my wife had this rare blood disease and the doctors in Cullowhee and Asheville saved her life. There were days we weren’t sure if Julie would make it. We didn’t think we were going to have any more children.
And then Julie’s mother was coming to the end of her life and Vivienne was born, and Vivienne’s name means “life.” And so you saw the circle of life. And then I had this opportunity to go back to Philly and be the head coach at Temple, and obviously I’m only here now because of that opportunity.
— SF: What do you think you would do if football was off the table for you entirely?
— MR: Probably be a teacher. Work with young people in some way.
— SF: What would you teach?
— MR: Well, it wouldn’t be math or science. I was always into political science, history, sociology — things that have to do with our world. I used to always talk about that at Baylor to our players: ‘Don’t just graduate. Get educated.’
— SF: You heard a lot of boos last year at home (the Panthers are 6-21 in their past 27 games at Bank of America Stadium). A “Fire Matt Rhule” chant even sprang up a few times at Charlotte Hornets games. You defended those fans, saying you preferred passion over apathy. Why?
— MR: At Temple — and I love Temple — I was coaching a game (as an assistant) against Kent State the day after Thanksgiving. We were like 1-11 and they were 1-10 or something like that, and there were about 1,200 people there.
So I know those feelings. I know what it feels like to walk in with the guys and look up in the stands and see that. Look, I do this because I love to teach and coach, but also I’m a competitor. When we don’t win, I’m unbelievably upset with myself. But of the two (passion and apathy), obviously everyone wants to be the hero. But I would much prefer that people care.
And, you know, at the end of the day if that (booing) affects you? Then you’re probably not the right person for the job.
