Can’t We Just Hit “Simulate Season”?: 2023 Carolina Panthers Season Preview

2022 PREDICTION: Bad

2022 REALITY: Worse (but not bad enough)

The Carolina Panthers. They have been in the league for nearly 30 years, and yet they have never shaken that Expansion Franchise stink despite playing in two Super Bowls- which I attribute to their insistence on teal-adjacent colors. They exist solely to be some ESPN blogger’s edgy darkhorse pick each preseason, although anyone who did so this year would be immediately committed as a danger to themselves and others.

The David Tepper ownership era, which began with the optimism born of him not being Jerry Richardson, has been an unmitigated disaster. After several years of fast-start-then-collapse strategies, they decided to switch it up and suck from the get-go in 2022. After a 1-4 start and a 11-27 overall record, Coach Matt Rhule was shown the door after earning $5.6 million per win. Defensive Coordinator Steve Wilks, previously known for getting fucked over by the Cardinals in his one-year tenure as head coach, got another chance at the Big Chair. Well, I say “chance”, despite the team promptly trading away their only offensive weapon in Christian McCaffrey and having Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and PJ Walker as his quarterbacks. Wilks went 6-6 and earned the loyalty of the team.

So of course Wilks received almost no consideration for the permanent job. I’ll let you do an image search if you are unclear why. They ended up 7-10, in case your math skills are like mine, good for the 9th pick in the draft despite almost being enough to win the NFC South.

2023 Big Damn Changes: Most everything. They hired Frank Reich as their head coach, which- while bullshit- is at least defensible bullshit. Reich threw the first TD pass in franchise history, was largely handicapped by Andrew Luck’s retirement and subsequent subpar QB play in Indy (albeit largely from a QB of his own choosing) and seems a decent fellow. The new offensive coordinator is Thomas Brown, a former running back who was the Rams’ assistant head coach during their Super Bowl win. Their new defensive coordinator is Ejiro Evero, who wisely passed up the Denver interim coaching gig and held the Broncos defense together last year, and was also on the Rams Super Bowl staff. So far, so good!

The biggest Big Damn Change is at quarterback, where Carolina mortgaged the farm, the barn, the tractor and Ma’s best pair of britches to move up and snag the diminutive Heisman winner Bryce Young out of Alabama. Specifically, they gave up two firsts (2023 and 2024), two seconds (2023 and 2025) and their only remaining offensive player with a pulse, DJ Moore. Young is small for…well, pretty much any NFL player outside of kickers, and he’s actually shorter than average there too, at 5’10” and 204. Normally, I deride the meathead analyst trope of “He’s too small to play in the NFL!” and I stand by that here. Unfortunately, I think he may be too small to play for the Carolina Panthers, whose offensive line is a sieve and where he will be throwing to Vikings castoff Adam Thielen, Falcons castoff Hayden Hurst, and Detroit castoff DJ Chark.  Short quarterbacks require scheming to allow for sightlines, and unless every play is a designed rollout, there is no way Young will have enough time to see the field before he gets buried.

Defense is still pretty good though, and Miles Sanders will probably have a good year trying to take the pressure off Young.

SCHEDULE CONSIDERATION

This is where the Panthers have a puncher’s chance. Not only are they in the moribund NFC South, where 8-9 was good enough for the playoffs, but they drew the equally craptacular AFC South as their main cross-conference schedule this year. That is ten inherently winnable games off the top. Their in-conference games revolve around the NFC North, which I consider a true crapshoot. The schedule is finished with a dusting of maybe-good-may-suck teams in Dallas, Seattle and Miami. I anticipate at least 7 games decided by a touchdown or less in the fourth quarter.

2023 PREDICTION: 6-11. It’s not going to be a pretty 6-11 either, and without a first rounder next year, I wouldn’t hold out much hope there either