Battle between Mayfield and Darnold will give Panthers training camp the spice it needs
An NFL training camp needs a few things to stand out from the pack: A passel of charismatic players who will interact with fans without being told to do so. Decent weather. Good seating and cheap concessions. And a head coach who doesn’t act like the world revolves around his football team.
But most of all, it needs a quarterback battle.
After watching large parts of all 28 Carolina Panther training camps and a few other random teams’ camps from time to time, I’m here to let you in on a secret you probably suspected already: Much of an NFL training camp is boring.
It can be sliced and diced into a few dramatic moments each day, as HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series does well. But a whole lot of training camp — for fans, for media, for coaches — involves standing around and watching players who mostly aren’t allowed to hit each other do a bunch of non-contact drills.
A quarterback battle, though, like the one the Carolina Panthers will have in Spartanburg this season?
That’s the spice of training camp life.
The Panthers’ trade for Baker Mayfield earlier this month will make life far more interesting for Carolina training camp No. 29, which starts Tuesday when the players report to Wofford College. Mayfield will try to wrest away the starting quarterback job from Sam Darnold, who has a six-month head start on new offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo’s offense.
Throws will be counted. Completions will be calibrated. Deep balls will be measured. Touchdowns and interceptions will be tweeted out with feverish intensity.
And then the preseason games — of which there are only three now, remember — will take on extra importance. Not only will Mayfield and Darnold be competing against each other, but rookie quarterback Matt Corral — the player general manager Scott Fitterer drafted to be Carolina’s long-term answer at the position — will also get his first snaps in a Carolina uniform.
By the time we get to Sept. 11, when Carolina hosts Cleveland, we’ll know who’s going to start Week 1 at QB. But now — no matter what anyone tells you — we actually don’t. Training camp is the NFL’s version of what Steve Spurrier used to call “talking season” in college football. There’s lots of speculation, but no one knows too much until the real stuff starts happening.
The Panthers certainly didn’t trade for Mayfield for one year with the idea of sitting him on the bench. But if Darnold, who is a bigger quarterback, and likely a better athlete, plays better in the preseason? Then it stands to reason that Matt Rhule is going to go with him again until he becomes injured or ineffective. Rhule doesn’t care about the “Mayfield revenge game” against Cleveland. After going 10-23 in his first two seasons as Carolina’s head coach, he just needs to win.
Rhule has to be careful not to put his finger on the scales one way or the other with this one, for wishing that Mayfield returns to the form that allowed him to lead Cleveland to a playoff win in 2020 isn’t the same as actually seeing it happen. Carolina has a good enough defense to hold it in games. If Christian McCaffrey stays healthy and the Panthers just get decent quarterback play, this is a team that can compete for its first playoff berth since 2017.
The Panthers have had good quarterback battles in training camp before, dating back to their first-ever camp in 1995 when rookie Kerry Collins was trying to unseat veteran QBs Frank Reich and Jack Trudeau (he did, by the fourth game).
Jake Delhomme and Rodney Peete had a nice duel in 2003. Peete started the first game, played one desultory half and then sat on the bench as the Delhomme legend began. Cam Newton technically had to win the job as a rookie in 2011, although everyone knew that was happening.
Ideally, in the long term, you don’t want training-camp quarterback battles. Most years, you want to know who your No. 1 QB is walking in the door, the way teams that employ Aaron Rodgers or Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady do.
But for the short term, it gives any NFL training camp a jolt. Charting the contestants and picking a winner for Week 1 will be Spartanburg’s most popular sport for a few weeks.
My pick? By Week 1, it will be Mayfield.
This story was originally published July 22, 2022 at 7:38 AM.
