Analysis: How Matt Rhule turned Panthers around so quick — the signs were always there
The Carolina Panthers entered 2020 facing the biggest challenge of any NFL team: a new head coach, new coordinators and a new starting quarterback.
Mix in a pandemic reducing offseason work in a manner similar to the 2011 strike year and the elimination of preseason games, sprinkle in the team’s best player suffering a high ankle sprain in Week 2, and it’s not hard to argue that few teams in recent NFL history have had a more difficult hill to climb.
But five weeks into the season, the Panthers are 3-2 and tied for the NFC South lead with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New Orleans Saints. The hurdles, however, haven’t stopped.
Just this week Carolina lost one of its best defensive players, team captain Kawann Short, for the season due to a shoulder injury for a second straight year, adding another roadblock for a run defense that has already been suspect.
But if you’ve watched this Panthers team, even the Week 2 loss at Tampa Bay, you would understand why national attention is being paid to what coach Matt Rhule is doing in Charlotte.
The Panthers’ record isn’t even that important here. It’s more how this team has looked overall in the first year of Rhule’s seven-year contract.
It is the three-game winning streak, however, that has led national reporters to now join in on the daily media Zoom calls. Sunday’s 1 p.m. kickoff versus Chicago on FOX was selected to be the most prominent game broadcasted by the network in the early slate of games.
Let’s not forget that the 2019 season started in a similar manner — the Panthers lost their first two games and their best player (Cam Newton) before reeling off four straight wins — but ended with an 0-8 collapse. It’s hard to envision this team being capable of a similar blunder.
There were hints along the way (and that’s coming from a person who picked the team to go 4-12) and key components of Rhule’s experience team-building that has allowed the team to be successful this fast — all positive signs for the future, no matter how the 2020 season turns out.
Matt Rhule builds one day at a time
During Rhule’s introductory press conference Jan. 7 inside the practice bubble near Bank of America Stadium, Panthers team owner David Tepper had talked a lot about wanting to build a culture of winning and having to tear things down to build “sustained success.”
“Sustained success to me is that mindset that we want to be great at everything. I’m going to talk about winning Super Bowls, but really the goal to me is to be the best at everything and I think if you are elite at everything, then eventually Super Bowls come and you can have sustained, competitive excellence,” Rhule said at the time. “Without knowing the roster, without knowing the things that will come up next year, what I do know is if we’re an 8-8 team, then we should be the best 8-8 team ever.”
Oh, the things that were to come.
Rhule mentioned multiple times throughout the offseason about his excitement to get in the building with his new team and getting to know the players. But by June, he had only met about 20 of his players in person. It wasn’t until late July that players were allowed to meet in person and come in the facility for training camp
He brought with him the coaching staff he wanted, from offensive coordinator Joe Brady and defensive coordinator Phil Snow, to the many assistants that were on his staff at Baylor -- prioritizing coaches that were “teachers.”
Newton and Greg Olsen were released. Luke Kuechly retired and almost the entire defensive line and the team’s best cornerback, James Bradberry, left in free agency.
A record seven defensive players were selected by the Panthers in an all-defense draft, and new faces were signed to replace the pillars of Carolina’s franchise. It seemed that with all of the departures, re-constructing would be too tough a task to allow for a three-game winning streak within the season’s first five weeks. Rhule himself often mentioned that their first four games were like the preseason.
But the teaching ability of the coaching staff came in handy with players learning new schemes. Second-year left tackle Greg Little has discussed how he has improved his hand placement from experienced offensive line coach Pat Meyer, and defensive end Efe Obada has shared how he was able to fully take advantage of the virtual time to learn more about football on a micro level.
That became important throughout the offseason that largely took place virtually, especially with everything being new.
“Right now, we’re a team that’s finding the extra 1%. We know what we’re stacked against. We know we’re a team that pretty much, 95% of us, don’t even know what each other’s faces look like,” safety Tre Boston said in June. “We know we’re a team that has a new coach. We know we’re a team that has only five returning starters. We can talk about that or we can fix it. And right now, it’s about having that ownership and we’re taking that ownership of knowing where we’re at and we’re going to get better each and every day.”
Building a Panthers team to fit the players
The Panthers’ new stars have emerged at speeds that were unexpected, especially with Christian McCaffrey about to miss a fourth straight game.
Teddy Bridgewater came into his time with the Panthers being known as an accurate passer who isn’t prone to making mistakes. Wide receiver Robby Anderson was signed from the Jets to a two-year, $20 million contract and was considered to just be a deep threat.
And running back Mike Davis? From the outside it appeared most advantageous for the Panthers to let him go. His $3 million price tag for the season didn’t seem worth it.
Bridgewater has completed a career- and league-high 73.4% of his passes, while throwing for 8.2 yards per attempt (also a career-high) and absolutely torching his yards-per-game career average (enters Sunday with 292 yards per game, up from his average of 217). He’s running an offense that is allowing him to make decisions on the fly and play in an offense that suits him.
“On a week-to-week basis, we’ll go through every portion of the call sheets, and (Bridgewater will) send me thoughts at night, he might look at something that we’re kind of game planning for,” Brady said this week. “Then we’ll meet the night before the game and if it’s something that, hey, I might have a great feel for it and I think it’s going to be an incredible play, but, the quarterback with the ball in his hands doesn’t see it the exact same way or might hesitate on it, well, why should I call that football play? So I’ll take it off the call sheet and we’ll rep what he feels comfortable with.”
Since the beginning of the season, Brady and Rhule have been referring to the offense as Bridgewater’s. He’s in a similar scheme to the one he and Brady were in during their time with the Saints. Brady has been open about wanting to build an offense that suited his players.
That’s what they’ve constructed with Bridgewater. There are still a myriad of issues on the offense that need to be addressed, especially in the red zone and on third down; however, the Panthers have finally started to etch out a role for wide receiver Curtis Samuel, who has become a go-to target on third down.
“Curtis is going to be critical to success,” Brady said in June. “Curtis is a playmaker, he fits the mold of what we’re looking for in this type of offense, a guy that you can utilize all around the field and get the ball in the hands and good things happen.”
Samuel is tied for the league-lead in receptions on third down with 11 (Keenan Allen) and has caught all 11 of his third down targets.
Anderson finished his time with the Jets never truly exploding as an all-around receiver, but he’s running the entire route tree at Carolina.
“Robby Anderson had a lot of places to go, but I think he saw Joe Brady’s offense as a chance for him to really break out,” Rhule said on the signing of his former college player in April. “He knows if it were up to me, we’d run the ball every play, so I mean it’s certainly not maybe as much me as it was Joe and his relationship with Teddy or going all the way back to South Florida (where Anderson is also from).”
Prior to coming to the Panthers, Anderson, 27, had never averaged four receptions per game in a single season. He’s up to 7.2 through five games this year. He’s also catching 78.3% of his targets, far exceeding any season with the Jets. (Though, to be fair, the quarterback play may not have always been so high.)
As for Davis, he has transitioned into a McCaffrey-like role in place of the injured All-Pro running back. He’s second to only Anderson in catches (30). In his six NFL seasons, no team has ever utilized the ability of Davis in the passing game the way the Panthers have. He’s nine yards away from a career-high in receiving yards in a single season (214 yards in 2018) and playing an unprecedented number of snaps.
His success means even more possibilities for the Panthers offense once McCaffrey, who is eligible to come off of injured reserve, does return.
But it’s the defense’s uptick in production that has made the most dramatic effect. The rush defense remains a concern, especially with Short’s injury, giving up 5.4 yards per carry — second-most in the league.
However, defensive end Brian Burns has played well, rookies Derrick Brown and Jeremy Chinn have made major impacts and perhaps no free agent signing was better than the waiver claim of cornerback Rasul Douglas. He entered the team’s facility for the first time the Wednesday before Week 1 and has played a major role on and off the field.
Per Pro Football Focus, his coverage grade of 69.4 (out of 100) ranks 24th among all NFL corners -- 15 spots ahead of Donte Jackson, the Panthers’ designated top player at the position who is dealing with a lingering toe injury. Douglas has also only given up 0.71 yard per coverage snap, which is in the top 20 among corners.
In addition, Douglas came to Rhule with the idea for a team meeting to help players get to know each other better, a move that helped bring on the three-game winning streak after Week 2.
“If I’m here with you all day, I need to know you,” Douglas said of the team meeting. “I need to know who you are, I need to know how you think, so when I’m on the field, I want to play for you. So that’s the thing I was trying to get down here.”
Next 11 games for the Panthers
The definition of a rebuild is to make extensive repairs to or to restore to a previous state.
No matter what language coaches use to the contrary, make no mistake: The Panthers are rebuilding. This team went through an overhaul this offseason, and has more differences to years past than similarities.
Ahead for this team remains the toughest parts of the schedule: Two games against the Saints and trips to Green Bay and the defending world champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Each week this team is giving an opportunity to learn more about Rhule and the way he’s building this group to go forward. This isn’t a tank job to obtain next year’s No. 1 draft pick, it’s a feisty team that has intrigued the NFL.
Winning record, losing record, 8-8 -- the first five games from these Panthers have shown promise of Tepper, general manager Marty Hurney and Rhule’s vision coming together.
The signs were always there, but it took five weeks of football to understand what they meant.
This story was originally published October 18, 2020 at 6:30 AM.
