The Carolina Panthers are heading into that most-dreaded of all phrases in sports: a rebuilding period.
This offseason, the roster experienced more turnover than any team in the NFL, along with most of the coaching staff. Heading into the 2020 season, most experts aren’t expecting the team to win more than five or six games.
It’s going to take time for coach Matt Rhule to dig out of this hole, if he can do it at all. The outlook for the franchise isn’t great for the foreseeable future. According to ESPN, the Panthers came in at No. 30 in their annual future power rankings.
These rankings measure how good a team should be over the next three years based on the quality of their starting quarterback, the overall roster, the coaching and the front office.
Across the board Carolina did not do well. ESPN ranked them No. 26 for the roster, No. 29 for quarterback, No. 25 in coaching, No. 25 in drafting and No. 27 for the front office.
It’s tough to argue about the roster. Right now, the best athlete on the team is the starting running back, and even if he’s the greatest to ever play the position, there’s not much he can do to lift the rest of the team, which was decimated by free agent losses, retirements and a few head-scratching decisions.
Putting Teddy Bridgewater at 29 is a bit low. While he’s a step down from Cam Newton, he should be a good fit for this offense and he’s better than most analysts are giving him credit for.
That said, the rest of the roster is a mess. This is easily the worst defense on paper in the NFC and might turn out to be the worst in the league.
The one true unkown is Rhule and his coaches. 25th might turn out to be an appropriate ranking, but we have no idea how he’s going to perform at this level. He also has a promising offensive coordinator in Joe Brady, who could be a head coach candidate in a couple of years if he can produce a top-10 offense with this unit. That’s all speculation, though. To be fair, the coaches should have gotten an incomplete grade.
The elephant in the room is the general manager.
Marty Hurney made some very poor decisions this offseason. Releasing Cam Newton was the worst of them. While he has a strong track record of making good first-round picks, there’s a lot more to the job and he’s generally fallen short in the other areas. Until they get a GM that’s better at managing the cap and finding talent outside of the first round, this team’s ceiling will be relatively low compared to the competition.
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