First Cam Newton, then Teddy. As the Panthers QB carousel spins on, how did we get here?
Stability at quarterback has been hard to find since David Tepper purchased the Carolina Panthers in 2018. In the three seasons since, the team’s situation at quarterback has been a trending topic of conversation on a large scale.
For the first two years, it was focused on Cam Newton and his health.
Last year was about releasing and then replacing the franchise quarterback. Now in 2021, the goal remains to find a long-term option that can help produce “sustained’ success that the organization, and Tepper specifically, is looking for. The Panthers have gone 17-31 since he bought the team with no winning seasons.
Those four years were also marked by decision-makers moving in and out of the building. The new owner came in and then fired the head coach, Ron Rivera, less than two years later. After hiring a new coach, Matt Rhule, the general manager, Marty Hurney, was fired a year after Rivera. The newest face, GM Scott Fitterer, was brought in last month. Now the in place leaders have some big moves to make.
The Panthers have holes all over the field, from offensive and defensive line to tight end and cornerback. Those needs have to be addressed, especially the lines, for any quarterback to come in to help lead a team to success. But there’s no denying finding a quarterback for the long-term is a key element in the NFL. It’s the reason why so many teams are in the hunt for one this offseason. Deshaun Watson’s surprise potential availability simply shifts the landscape for finding one.
For now, the future remains uncertain with moving parts around the league still to come. Before moving full-speed ahead to one of the most “pivotal offseasons” in franchise history, as Rhule said, let’s take a step back to the decisions that led to this spot.
Moving on from Cam Newton
The decision to release Newton was not one made overnight.
After a shoulder injury limited his performance in the second half of the 2018 season, he had a second surgery on his right shoulder in January 2019. That was followed by playing only two games that fall due to a Lisfranc injury. He missed more games in 2019 than he had in every other season of his career combined.
With a new head coach and system being put into place, and Newton’s injury history, the Panthers moved on from the quarterback who had one year remaining on his deal. It was all part of the fresh start under Tepper after he bought the team from Jerry Richardson, bringing in his own people from the business side to the coaching staff. Building sustained success means restructuring a team around a new younger quarterback.
Newton started 15 games for the Patriots in 2020, but visibly struggled at times to get the ball down field, finishing with eight touchdown passes — the fewest in his career outside of the 2019 season — 10 interceptions and 12 rushing touchdowns. Scheduled to become a free agent when the league year begins in March, his future is uncertain.
There’s no telling exactly how he would have played on the Panthers’ offense in an entirely different scheme, but the injuries were a factor and Carolina likely still would have been in a position of looking for a new quarterback this offseason.
“Cam Newton is a great quarterback and can play in any system,” Rhule said in April. “I just think in a year like this especially, where we’re all kind of (having a virtual offseason. I think … Teddy’s a guy that’s been in this offense, knows this offense, has great familiarity with Joe. It just makes sense to us,” Rhule said. “... It’s not a comparison to me as much as it is just sort of this was an opportunity for us and we took it.”
Signing Teddy Bridgewater
When Bridgewater was signed to a three-year, $63 million deal last offseason, there was always a real possibility that Carolina would still need to address the quarterback position in 2021, even if he had put together a more consistent performance. Drafting someone to learn under him this upcoming season, similar to what the Kansas City Chiefs did with Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes in 2017, was on the table based on how his contract is structured. While the Panthers would have $20 million in dead cap if Bridgewater is released in 2021, that number decreases to $5 million in 2022, per Spotrac.
He was brought in partly because in a reduced offseason due to the COVID-19 pandemic with a brand new coaching staff, his familiarity with offensive coordinator Joe Brady from the 2018 season with the New Orleans Saints was viewed as an upside, as Rhule alluded to. But he was also someone the coaching staff advocated for signing thinking he’d be a good fit for the team.
Cornerbacks coach Evan Cooper, formerly the recruiting coordinator at Baylor under Rhule and whom the head coach values the opinion of, mentioned Bridgewaer before the coaching staff even made the transition to the NFL.
“(Evan Cooper) was the one that always talked about Teddy, like, ‘Hey if you ever go to NFL, this is who we should get,’ just knowing him and his football character and his character,” Rhule said this fall. “Then we saw him at the Sugar Bowl while he was practicing (with the Saints). I had a chance to visit with him and talk to him a little bit.”
Once hired in Charlotte, Rhule and his staff put together tapes of what they were looking for in players to match their schemes. When it came to the quarterback position, a variety of examples of Bridgewater were used to illustrate what the offensive staff was looking for.
“A lot of clips were Teddy in terms of pocket movement and different things that Joe (was looking for). So that kind of translated into ‘Hey, this guy would be a great fit for the system, the guy would be a great fit for us,’ ” Rhule said. “When the time came, we made a run at him.”
In his first season starting 10-plus games since 2015, Bridgewater had a year that about matched what his previous performances indicated, completing a career-high 69.1% of his passes and throwing 15 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. He was also 0-8 in game-winning or game-tying situations, but only some of that fell on the quarterback.
Just a year after the signing, the Panthers are including Bridgewater in trade proposals (see Matthew Stafford) and no public support has been given from Tepper, Rhule or Fitterer for Bridgewater being the Week 1 starter in 2021.
But despite that, there’s a solid chance he will be.
What if?
Hurney was the only general manager in attendance at Justin Herbert’s Pro Day at Oregon just before things shut down. Herbert was eventually picked one spot above the Panthers at No. 6 by the Los Angeles Chargers and named Offensive Rookie of the Year.
“We spent a lot of time studying (Herbert) with thoughts of maybe drafting him, right? So we put a lot of time into him last year, so we studied him a lot,” defensive coordinator Phil Snow said in September.
There are always what-ifs. The Panthers got a solid defensive tackle in Derrick Brown with the seventh overall pick and filled a need on the defensive line. Going after Herbert would have required giving up draft picks, something that the Panthers could have been questioned for in the first year under Rhule. Bridgewater was also already on board at this point, someone who the coaching staff advocated for.
If Herbert continues to have seasons like his rookie year, it will remain an interesting possibility back to, especially if Carolina struggles at all to find any stability at quarterback. Instead, the Panthers focused in on addressing the defensive side of the ball, which now has a solid foundation.
With Fitterer hired, he will assist in putting Rhule’s vision of what this team should look like to work with Tepper’s perspective involved as well.
Next up
Tepper is very interested in bringing Watson to Carolina, as The Observer has reported over the last month. That sentence a year ago would have been shocking, which is another lesson that predicting anything too far into the future in the NFL is a waste of time. The quarterback dominoes continuing to fall, including Carson Wentz heading to Indianapolis, are evidence of that. It’s something to keep an eye on, but plenty of teams can and will be interested and a significant amount would have to been given up. But first the Houston Texans have to agree to trade Watson or engage in conversation about doing so, which they’ve said they won’t do.
Taking a quarterback in the draft is of course on the table. Bridgewater being the starter in 2021 is one of the strongest possibilities at this time; his $23 million cap hit makes a trade for him less likely, despite any wishes from Carolina.
To help get on the same page, the Panthers’ coaching staff and scouts have met over the past week or so with Fitterer, who has said the team will be “in on every deal.”
Rumors will continue to swirl every which way, but being all-in on finding “the” guy at some point soon, came about before Watson’s desires to get out became more public.
“It’s a question of who can be that guy that can help you win. That’s the most important position on the field,” Tepper said in December. “Unless you have that guy for sure that gets you to playoffs and Super Bowls, you have to keep reevaluating that because that’s the only thing that matters is Super Bowls. And until you have that guy, you’re evaluating, evaluating, evaluating every year.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 3:51 PM.
