A pragmatic David Tepper has a Ron Rivera decision coming. Even good coaches wear out
If we held ourselves to the same standard we hold coaches, unemployment would hover at about 90 percent.
Ron Rivera, who coaches the Carolina Panthers, is good at what he does. He’s lost games, but he’s never lost his team. Players have believed in him since 2011, when general manager Marty Hurney pushed Carolina to hire him.
The 2019 season has been about inconsistently and injuries, notably an injury to quarterback Cam Newton. The Panthers lost their first two games with Newton as quarterback, and then they lost Newton.
But Carolina hung in, and rallied around their raw and inexperienced 23-year-old quarterback, Kyle Allen. They went on a nice little tear, winning four straight and five out of six. The pass rush was very good, running back Christian McCaffrey was great, and Allen repeatedly did enough to win.
He struggled against the very good defense of the San Francisco 49ers, and reached his nadir last week against the Atlanta Falcons.
Allen had company. The game felt more like a statement than a loss. The Falcons, who upset Carolina 29-3, were the only team in the NFL last week to beat an opponent with a better record. The Falcons didn’t merely beat the Panthers; they handled them. If you looked away, you missed Atlanta doing something good.
A long-time NBA coach once told me that there comes a time when players stop listening. Even good coaches – and Rivera is a good coach – wear out.
You don’t have to go far to find an example. Steve Clifford had been an NBA assistant coach lifer when in 2013 the then Charlotte Bobcats hired him. Clifford coached five seasons before new general manager Mitch Kupchak jettisoned him.
Clifford, whom the Orlando Magic almost immediately hired, was good, very good, and still is. But in Charlotte, he and his message had worn out. Kupchak made the right decision when he let Clifford go, and the Magic made the right decision when it hired him.
Carolina is Rivera’s first head coaching job. He’s twice been named the league’s Coach of the Year. Whether you acknowledge this or not, the man leads.
But has his time in Carolina expired? Or has he done good work keeping a team led by Allen competitive – at least until the Atlanta loss. Allen unquestionably is a good backup. Is he a starter to which a team can entrust its offense 16 games a season? We don’t know.
A factor: Rivera has long been one of Allen’s biggest supporters. When, in a one-on-one conversation before the season, I asked Rivera if he was interested in blackballed quarterback Colin Kaepernick or in a veteran another team might cut. He said he was not.
Rivera came to Charlotte in 2011, same year as Newton. They once were linked. The better Newton was, the better Rivera was.
Rivera now is linked to Allen.
What would you do if you were Panthers’ owner David Tepper? He’s not fragile, so the loud and often anonymous Fire Rivera today faction of the Carolina fan base will not affect him.
In a conversation with reporters Monday Tepper said that he despises mediocrity.
I believe him. But how many NFL owners have you heard say that they embrace mediocrity? How many NFL owners have said that if they fail to attain mediocrity, offices will empty and heads will roll?
Will the Panthers be better without Rivera? That’s what Tepper, a pragmatic, gutsy and instinctive decision-maker who usually is the smartest man in the room, has to figure out.
Tepper has six more games to do it. His Panthers likely will be underdogs in five of them.
Eagles let me down
I missed two games in my picks last week, the Atlanta Falcons victory against the Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots’ victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Atlanta-Carolina was neither competitive nor interesting. Philadelphia was frustrating. I like Philadelphia quarterback Carson Wentz. I like North Dakota State, where he starred in college. If you’re ever near Fargo, you ought to swing by.
But the Eagles, and their acute absence of speed, could sustain nothing. I understand that New England’s defense is superb. I get it. But on Philadelphia’s end, blocks were missed, passes weren’t caught and Wentz played as if he knew he was about to get hit.
I had a better week than he did. I got my Lock for the fourth straight week. The Lock is the lone game I pick against the line. I picked the Baltimore Ravens (-4½) to cover against the visiting Houston Texans. The line was a gift. The Ravens won 41-7.
Last week: 12-2
Season: 105-53-1
Lock of the Week: My Ravens covered.
Season: 7-4
This week’s picks, with the home team in CAPS:
Thursday
HOUSTON 2 over Indianapolis
Sunday
CLEVELAND 9 over Miami
Seattle 4 over PHILADELPHIA
CHICAGO 2 over New York Giants
NEW ORLEANS 13 over Carolina
BUFFALO 3 over Denver
Detroit 4 over WASHINGTON
Oakland 7 over NEW YORK JETS
Pittsburgh 8 over CINCINNATI
TENNESSEE 6 over Jacksonville
NEW ENGLAND 1 over Dallas
SAN FRANCISCO 3 over Green Bay
Monday
Baltimore 3 over LOS ANGELES RAMS
Lock of the Week: ATLANTA (-4½) 11 over Tampa Bay.
RIP Mr. 15-1
You might not have known Wil Butler. But if you listen to sports talk radio, you knew his voice. Wil was opinionated and informed and passionate. He believed, always, that this year was going to be the Carolina Panthers’ year, regardless of what year it was.
Wil’s nickname on WFNZ’s Mac Attack was Mr. 15-1 because Wil always believed the Panthers would go 15-1 – except for the season he picked them to go 16-0. Although he grew up in Connecticut, he loved the team and he especially loved quarterback Cam Newton.
Wil, 69, passed away Oct. 28 in his sleep, in his home. His service was Wednesday at Myers Park Baptist Church.
I met Wil at the Hawthorne’s New York Pizza and Bar on Carmel Road. We hung out some. He liked good food and good service, and when he walked into Reid’s Fine Foods Restaurant & Bar at SouthPark, or Café Monte, it was as if a red carpet was rolled out especially for him.
I eat my share of takeout, and if the takeout was from a restaurant that failed to meet Will’s standards, he let me know.
Bartenders knew Wil and liked him, and he liked them. The pretty ones seemed to like him most.
Wil went to my girlfriend’s studio during a gallery crawl. He was curious about art and most other things. Curiosity is a quality I find essential and admire greatly. We disagreed about what her best work is.
We often disagreed. I’d tell him that the Panthers were going 8-8 or 9-7, and he’d look at me as if I’d ordered food from an inferior restaurant and say, “Let me ask you a question,” not really asking.
I’ll miss our arguments, and discussions, miss meeting him for a glass of wine, miss laughing, miss hearing, “Let me ask you a question,” miss his culinary expertise and the red carpet that was exclusively his. I’ll miss his curiosity and his enthusiasm.
Mostly, I’ll miss Mr. 15-1. And if the Panthers ever go 15-1 again, I’ll buy two glasses of wine and leave one in front of the empty seat next to me.
In defense of bowls
If you count the national championship, and why wouldn’t you, there will be 40 bowl games this season. Every time somebody talks about a team with a record of 4-6, they say that the team could be bowl eligible since a .500 record is all that’s required. Writing about the teams that will not be bowl eligible would save time.
But I’m not anti-bowl. One of my career failures is not making it to Shreveport, La., for the Poulan Weed-Eater Independence Bowl. The bowl is merely the Independence Bowl now, which has chopped off some of the charm.
I went to the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. I remember asking a man who worked in hospitality there where I should go to hear blues. He asked: “You want Delta blues, country blues, Chicago blues, gospel blues or blues blues?”
Blues blues, I told him. He told me where to go. I squeezed into a crowded and sweaty Beale Street bar and thought: This is the reason you leave home.
At a Liberty Bowl session for teams, media and sponsors, a man wearing a Liberty Bowl jacket announced that the bowl was the best in the country.
So the real national championship would be played between two mediocre games there.
Bowls are for players who aren’t ready for the season to end, coaches who need a bowl on their resume to keep their jobs and fans who want to travel with their team. Schools are assigned tickets to sell, and have to pay for them whether they sell them or not.
Come on, people we’re playing in Detroit in December, open those wallets and purses now.
Fans put on their best team garb and introduce themselves to a city they might not know.
It’s tougher to get into some parties than it is most bowls. N.C. State, which is 1-6 in the weak ACC, could qualify for a bowl by winning its final two games. If there aren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill the bowls, schools with smart students and seven losses fill in.
Does this mean there are too many bowls?
Not until I get to Shreveport.
Short takes: The ‘what ifs’ with Cam Newton
▪ The longer Cam Newton is out, the better he becomes. If the Carolina Panthers continue to lose, Newton will become Tom Brady with better accuracy, Lamar Jackson with better moves, and Russell Wilson with better poise.
Fans locally, regionally and nationally long ago took sides on Newton. Some point to every pass Newton throws high and say, “See. I told you.”
Others point to every Newton scramble, or 17-yard dart, and say, “See. I told you.”
Would Newton be enough to save the 2019 Panthers? Would Newton’s ability to move negate problems with the inconsistent and sometimes porous offensive line? Would Newton pick up all those fourth-down-and-short runs that Christian McCaffrey has failed to? Would Newton have provided assistance Sunday stopping Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan and his excellent wide receivers?
None of us know what Newton, if healthy, would have accomplished this season. Maybe he would have been the great connector, and with him in the game the offensive line would block better, the young receivers would run better routes and defenses would have to devote a spy to Newton, or at least skew their alignment to account for him leaving the pocket.
Yet even with Newton, the Panthers would be at a disadvantage. They play in the NFC.
The easiest way for an NFC team to make the playoffs is to play with the Dallas Cowboys and the fellows in the East. The NFC wild card leaders are 8-2 Seattle and 8-3 Minnesota. The Los Angeles Rams, who beat Carolina on opening day, lead the Panthers by a game.
With Newton, the Panthers would be pretty good. But this is a tough season to be pretty good in the NFC…
▪ Can we really surmise that because Colin Kaepernick changed the location of his NFL audition Saturday he doesn’t want to play in the NFL? I’ve read and heard that.
The NFL had set up the audition for him. But the NFL also set him up by making all the rules. No media, which is to say, no transparency. You have four days to prepare. You have to audition on a Saturday, a day on which almost every coach and general manager is otherwise engaged.
The audition was a power play by the NFL. Kaepernick chose not to play.
Perhaps the blackballed quarterback wins by not capitulating to the NFL. But will the drama affect the likelihood of a team signing him for the remainder of this season, and likely next season? Or is this still the end of Kaepernick. We’ll know soon enough…
▪ Jimmie Johnson says that next season, his 19th, will be his NASCAR finale. Johnson is one of the best drivers of all time, and a good guy and a great representative for his sport…
▪ The NFL dropped the $10,527 fine against Cleveland defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi, but upheld the one-game suspension. Ogunjobi was suspended for shoving Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph to the ground during last week’s brawl. Rudolph was facing the other way.
The suspension is believed to be the first in NFL history for a former Charlotte 49er...
▪ Payne Boxing of Charlotte had a good Friday night at WinnaVegas Casino and Resort in Sloan, Iowa. Welterweight Alberto Palmetta of Argentina beat previously undefeated Erik Vega Ortiz on a technical knockout. Marcos Escudero, also of Argentina, lost a controversial light-heavyweight decision to undefeated Joseph George.
Gardner Payne was the N.C. Boxing Manager of the Year in 2017 and ‘18. He’s particular; he wants professionals capable of winning a title.
Boxers train at a camp he runs in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with Luis “Chiro” Perez, who has worked for Don King and with champion Roy Jones Jr.
I’ve see Palmetta (13-1) and Escudero (10-1 with nine knockouts) twice on Christy Martin’s boxing cards at CenterStage@NODA. They can fight. Payne expects them to fight on another Martin card in Charlotte.
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 12:22 PM.