2024 PREDICTION: “3-14. Pray for Throwy Smurf- if he’s not murdered on the field, Tepper will have him publicly executed for the crime of Failing to be CJ Stroud.”

2024 REALITY: 5-12! It’s a measure of Carolina fans’ desperation that 5-12 is considered a Major Step Forward for this floundering, benighted franchise.

Those victories came over the Saints, the Falcons, the Giants, the Raiders and Arizona (after Call of Duty’s latest game released). Not exactly a Murderers’ Row, and it’s even less impressive when you see that every one of those except the Raiders was by less than a single score.

Honestly, I get it though- the criteria for “success” had only two boxes:

1. Is Bryce Young better than last year?
2. Is Bryce Young better than C.J. Stroud?

Thanks to a horrendous season across the board in Houston, #2 was not a high hurdle. Not that #1 was that hard to meet either, but Young did it- 15 TDs to 9 interceptions in parts of 14 games, and he did it without looking like he was pants-shittingly terrified at all times.

It’s somewhat less heartening when you see that his relief, Andy Dalton, was better in essentially every category except interception rate. But the David Tepper Panthers have to take every little bit of good news they can get, no matter how tarnished.

Because while they improved on offense, Carolina was Historically Bad on defense. That’s not the usual Reverend Mayhem hyperbole, either- the generally staid editors of Wikipedia lead off the season recap by calling it “one of the worst defenses in NFL history” and then piling on the stats in support.

2025 Big Damn Changes:

You’d think it would be additions to the defense. You would be wrong.

Of course, you would think that implies that they focused on changes to the offense. You would be wrong there too.

Mostly, the Panthers focused on retaining their own free agents. Which isn’t where most teams would go with a 5-12 record and a fair amount of cap space, but general manager Dan Morgan has A Plan. Given that he managed to keep David Tepper from firing yet another coach, maybe it’s even A Good Plan.

They took a big swing trying to sign Milton Williams, and when that fell through I think they just kind of gave up. Cowboys washout Rico Dowdle and Bills punter Sam Martin were perhaps their most recognizable signings, which is…not promising.

The draft was…weird. With their original second-round pick sent to Chicago as the last piece of the Bryce Young trade (a.k.a. The Final Insult), they only had one draft pick in the top 50 at #8. Despite their crying need for defensive help- any defensive help at all- they went with wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan. McMillan was a polarizing player in the lead up to the draft- he was generally considered the best wideout who was not also a cornerback, but whether that made him a Top 10 pick or a late first rounder was a matter of some debate. As far as I can tell, the pick is part of the Panthers’ destructive testing of Bryce Young in advance of deciding whether to pick up his 5th Year Option. He’s got a workable offensive line, two high draft picks at wideout, and an underrated running back/tight end pairing in Chuba Hubbard and Tommy Tremble. If Young can’t look like an average passer this year, they know it’s time to cut bait and chase Cade Klubnik or whoever. Yes, that is apparently the name of a real college quarterback and not a college-dropout Nazi in charge of our nuclear weapons.

SCHEDULE CONSIDERATION

Gonna go ahead and do a cut-and-paste from ladt year here: “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. As discussed above, the Panthers can suck anywhere, anytime, regardless of the opposition. They could play in the corpse of the PAC-12 and still lose six conference games.”

The NFC South is Bad. None of the other teams has done much to raise expectations, but that still leaves the shambling dead-cap corpse Saints and the goddawful Panthers to fight over the coveted 4th slot in one of the two worst divisions in football

2025 PREDICTION: 4-13. Canales holds onto his job until Tepper convinces Bill Belichick to submit a paper napkin that says “I resign as HC of UNC.” Jordon becomes shadow offensive coordinator.