The hunt: Fitterer, Tepper, Wilks and Carolina’s search for coaching’s next big thing
The day after a season ends in the NFL is an anti-climax unless you win the Super Bowl. Think about how Dec. 26 or July 5 feels, and you’ve got the emotion about right. The fireworks are over. What’s left is mostly the clean-up.
For the Carolina Panthers, though, it’s more complicated than that. They weren’t only cleaning out lockers Monday — some of them permanently. The franchise was also already starting on the 2023 season as it began a head-coaching search that, as Carolina general manager Scott Fitterer said, may last a week or a month.
To a man, the Carolina players who spoke to the media Monday as they loaded their gear into cardboard boxes backed interim head coach Steve Wilks for the permanent job.
But Wilks’ hiring is far from a given. The Panthers have all sorts of options to consider, from veteran NFL head coaches like Frank Reich and Jim Caldwell, to relative youngsters like Detroit Lions offensive coordinator (and UNC grad) Ben Johnson.
The Panthers aren’t going to lure former New Orleans coach Sean Payton here. But there are a lot of other names in play for the head-coaching job if owner Dave Tepper decides not to hire Wilks (who is interviewing for the job Tuesday, a source confirmed to The Observer).
“I think this is a very, very attractive job on the outside,” Fitterer said. “People are looking at it (like): ‘This is a young team. This division is up for grabs here the next few years. There’s no dominant quarterback.’ They look at our defense. They look at the offensive line, some of the pieces that we have and the way we’re growing right now. With a few tweaks here and there, this is a division that we can take over. That opportunity is there.”
Wilks had his last “day-after-game” press conference for the Panthers on Monday and said he had no regrets about the team’s 6-6 record under his direction.
“None of you,” Wilks said, addressing the media, “expected us to even be in this situation. So to be able to take a 1-4 team and be able to get to the doorstep of possibly winning this division and going into the playoffs, I have no regrets whatsoever.”
Tepper had said when he fired Matt Rhule and hired Wilks on an interim basis in October that Wilks would have a shot at the permanent position if he did an “incredible” job.
So, did he?
“I think that’s someone’s opinion — what they consider to be incredible,” Wilks said. “What I consider to be incredible, and the things I do around the house, my wife doesn’t see it that way, you know? So it just depends on what you perceive as incredible. I’ll let him (Tepper) determine that fact.”
If the Panthers had made the playoffs, few would have argued with defining that as “incredible.” But they didn’t. As it was, Carolina (7-10) finished a single game behind division winner Tampa Bay (8-9) after the Panthers edged New Orleans, 10-7, on a walk-off field goal Sunday. The thought here is that Wilks should get the job, but that he very well may not get it.
So Monday was bittersweet. The Panthers were coming off a win, but they had nothing to do except go home. For the fifth straight year, Carolina had missed the playoffs, thanks to a 30-24 loss the week before at Tampa Bay.
Cornerback Josh Norman, only two weeks removed from working at his family’s coffee shop in Atlanta, played 60 out of 60 defensive snaps Sunday vs. New Orleans after playing only 10 snaps the week before.
How did he feel Monday? “Run over,” Norman said with a smile.
Norman will be 36 years old next season, and it’s quite possible that he’s played his last snap in the NFL. But the Panthers have a lot of key players who will be back, including defensive linemen Brian Burns and Derrick Bown, safety Jeremy Chinn and cornerback Jaycee Horn. Left tackle Ickey Ekwonu has solidified one of the game’s most important positions on an offensive line that was far better in 2022 than in 2021.
But what the Panthers don’t have — and what they desperately need — is a reliable, long-term answer at quarterback. Everything they’ve tried since Cam Newton got hurt in 2018 hasn’t worked out (including Newton 2.0). With the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 draft, Carolina will have another chance to draft a quarterback high.
And that may happen, as Fitterer said Monday in what is destined to be a memorable term that 2023 could be the Panthers’ “sexy draft.” As he described it: “This is the year that we go out and can take some shots on more explosive-type athletes and players. It might be a little more of a sexy draft than just a nuts-and-bolts type draft… We’re in a position now where we can take some of those shots.”
Fitterer said those “explosive” players might include a vertical threat at wide receiver, a speed linebacker, a “ball hawk on the back end” of the defense and another pass rusher to place opposite Brian Burns.
The sexy draft, huh? Sounds like a T-shirt waiting to happen.
All that is for down the road, though. First, the coach has to be hired. Then will come the multiple quarterback decisions that must be made and all the rest of it.
“You know my future, this team’s future, who’s going to coach here — that’s all up in the air,” Sam Darnold said Monday.
True. Darnold went 4-2 for the Panthers as a starter, but on Sunday he won despite a 2.8 quarterback rating, two interceptions and only 43 passing yards. It was his last game before hitting free agency.
That ending didn’t exactly bode well for Darnold’s future, although he might get brought back. If it’s over for him in the Queen City, Darnold will have ended up with numbers in Charlotte about as mediocre as you can get. He was 8-9 as a starter in his two years as a Panther, with 16 touchdown passes and 16 interceptions.
But Darnold is also only 25 years old and has a big arm. Somebody’s going to give him a serious look and then a serious amount of money once again this offseason.
Will it be the Panthers? My guess is no, that the next coach will want to start over with a different set of QBs and put his own stamp on Carolina’s program. All these decisions are still to be made, though. Because, as Fitterer said: “We have to decide who the head coach is first.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 5:09 PM.
