Share
Carolina Panthers coach John Fox likes to divide NFL seasons into four quarters. It's an easy analogy to draw with his players - in a 16-game season, each quarter equals four games.
All you have to do, Fox tells his players every season, is go 3-1 every quarter. That's always the goal, because 3-1 every quarter gets you to 12-4. And 12-4 not only gets you into the playoffs but probably earns you a first-round bye, too.
It's a nice theory, but that's all it has been this season. The Panthers (3-5) have now reached halftime of the 2009 season, and so far it's been a royal mess.
The bad news keeps on coming, too.
The latest blow came Monday, when Carolina lost standout outside linebacker Thomas Davis for the rest of the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.
So what now?
Well, if you were expecting large-scale change, you haven't been paying much attention to Fox's methods for the past 7 1/2 seasons. Consistency is both a curse and a blessing for the Panthers' coach.
He knows no other way, which is why his defense is pretty good every year, why he runs on most third-and-12s and why he doesn't quite seem to trust but will nevertheless stick with Jake Delhomme at quarterback until the day pigs fly by, flapping their brand-new wings.
How to solve the Panthers' problems?
"We've got to man up and get better," Fox said Monday.
Despite the crushing loss of Davis and despite the 14-point lead wasted against New Orleans on Sunday in Carolina's 30-20 loss, there is actually a bit of time to do this.
You can't count an NFL team totally out of the playoffs until loss No.8 these days or even, occasionally, loss No.9.
"We've got half the season left," Fox said. "We were 1-3 in the first quarter; we were 2-2 in the second quarter. The upside of that is there is improvement."
But, at midterm, the Panthers are failing this pass/fail class.
They have already lost more regular-season games in 2009 than they did in 2008.
If the Panthers ended up 3-1 in each of the last two quarters of this season, they would go 9-7 and have a shot at a wild-card spot.
A 3-1 record is actually possible in quarter No.3, which includes only one team (Atlanta at home Sunday) that currently sports a winning record among the Panthers' four opponents.
The final quarter, though, will likely go the way of the final quarter of Sunday's New Orleans game. It will be brutal.
The Panthers' final four, in order: At New England (6-2). Home vs. Minnesota (7-1). At the New York Giants (5-4). And home vs. the Saints (8-0) to close.
So the Davis injury seems to be another sad signpost for Carolina during this four-month journey on the road to irrelevancy.
They are halfway there at this point.
And while it's theoretically possible, I don't really think there's any turning back now.
