Can Panthers deal with prosperity? Plus, Joey Slye’s return and a Carolina-Houston pick
Matt Rhule will have been Carolina’s head coach for 625 days when his Panthers kick off against the Houston Texans on Thursday night.
He has coached a team with a winning record for 18 of those days.
We’re all still figuring out how a Rhule team copes with success, even a small success like this 2-0 record that the Panthers will try to push to 3-0 on Thursday (8:20 p.m. kickoff, NFL Network nationally and Channel 9 locally).
It didn’t go so well the first time in Charlotte when the Panthers briefly eked out a winning record five games in under Rhule’s rule. It’s easy to forget now, but the 2020 Panthers were actually 3-2 at one point, starting 0-2 but then winning three straight.
Then the Panthers tanked. They lost nine of their last 11 games, finishing 5-11 and not long after that remaking the quarterback position yet again.
I asked Rhule this week if it was easier to coach a team dealing with adversity or prosperity.
“I would say adversity,” the coach said, “if you can block out the noise … and not start questioning everything … These guys in this locker room, and in all NFL locker rooms, they are winners. And so when things aren’t going well, they’re going to buckle down and they’re going to say, ‘OK, what do we need to do to win?’ And you’re going to have elite practice, elite preparation and get the guy’s best games.”
As for prosperity, Rhule said: “I tell the guys the hardest thing to do in the world is not become a heavyweight champion but to stay the heavyweight champion. If we have a ton of success, sometimes you can ease up. At the end of the day, we’ve won two games. If what we did last week seems special at the end of the season, we didn’t have a very good season.”
Joey Slye returns as a foe
Expect a lot of pregame love from Panther players in the direction of Houston kicker Joey Slye, who was Carolina’s placekicker until too many errant kicks got him released last month. Slye was popular in the locker room and has remained in touch with a number of Panthers. He’s made all seven of his extra points for Houston and gone 3-for-4 on field goals, missing from 41 yards last week in the fourth quarter when Houston was trying to get within one possession of Cleveland.
A little stitious
I thought quarterback Sam Darnold was going to quote a great line from “The Office” this week, but he barely missed the opportunity. Darnold admitted he always sits in the same seat in meetings when his team had won the week before, but added he wasn’t “super superstitious.”
It was Michael Scott, of course, who said: “I’m not superstitious. But I’m a little stitious.”
▪ Thursday night blues: The Panthers have played 11 games on Thursday nights in their history and gone a nasty 2-9 in those. They are 3-9 on Thursdays overall when you count their only day game — the 33-14 Thanksgiving rout of the Dallas Cowboys in 2015 that was their best Thursday performance.
▪ Although edge rushers Haason Reddick and Brian Burns have combined for half of Carolina’s NFL-high 10 sacks, the defense’s performance has been more balanced than that. The Panthers have also had an NFL-high eight players contribute at least a half-sack to that total.
Prediction time
I fell to 1-1 on the season after incorrectly forecasting New Orleans to beat the Panthers. This time, Carolina’s defense will prove the difference as it plays another rookie quarterback in Davis Mills. My pick: Carolina 27, Houston 12.
