Tom Talks: The Carolina Panthers won’t tank. They’ll rebuild and that’s a good thing.

A team is not supposed to use the term “tank.” If the Carolina Panthers say they are going to tank next season, they’ll anger their players, anger some fans and create more bad publicity for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

So the Panthers will call their strategy a rebuild, lose lots of games and get a very good draft pick in 2021.

I’m fine with tanking. Would tanking be worse than Carolina’s last two painfully long seasons? In 2019, the Panthers offered early hope and finished 5-11. In 2018, they offered early hope and went 7-9.

But that’s who Carolina is. Look at the last 10 seasons, beginning in 2010.

In 2010, the Panthers lost more games than they won. They also lost more in 2011 and 2012. They won more than they lost in 2013, lost more in 2014, won more in 2015 and lost more in 2016.

We get excited when Christian McCaffrey does something sensational, or when Cam Newton did. But although the Panthers won the NFC South in three consecutive seasons, in one of them with a record of 7-8-1, they’ve been a testament to mediocrity.

So instead of being mediocre in this, year one of the Matt Rhule Era, why not be bad?

I don’t like to pick Carolina’s record until I see the team several times in Spartanburg. The last two seasons I picked them to go 8-8. This season they’ve added new coaches and shed talent. You can’t tell your players not to work. You lost because you lack the talent that opponents have. If I had to pick Carolina’s record now, I’d pick 4-12.

As good as Ron Rivera was – and he was a good coach, and will be a better coach this season with Washington if owner Daniel Snyder stays out of the way – he could not lift the program where he wanted to take it. Nobody in franchise history ever has.

The Panthers did make the playoffs four times in the last decade and, after the 2015 season, made the Super Bowl. But most seasons the playoffs are a pleasant surprise and, with the exception of the Super Bowl season, the playoffs ended in a postseason game against the New Orleans Saints, Seattle Seahawks or San Francisco 49ers.

So, 2020 will be a losing season and 2021 likely will be, too. The idea is to be a franchise that eventually becomes an annual playoff contender. Losing now is the price the Panthers must pay.

I know fans that say that they are not going to renew their season tickets to watch a product that will be among the NFL’s worst.

But I don’t believe them. You know the fans that say they are finished with a sport during a work stoppage (don’t call it a strike)?

Almost none of them are finished. They are passionate about the NFL and about their team, which is the reason they react so strongly to a stoppage. They come back.

Similar are the Carolina fans that loudly declare a month before the draft and six months before opening day that they will not support a loser. They’ll come back.

Next season will be the first under the new regime. I suspect we’ll show up to see what the Panthers do with it.

Perspective required with coronavirus

There’s only one story in sports, and it is coronavirus. Because of the danger the virus poses, group gatherings such as conference basketball tournaments have been canceled, NBA and Major League Baseball suspended.

We love the conference tournaments, and there’s no better way to end a season than the NCAA tournament. As April approaches, college basketball and the NBA ramp up, and Major League Baseball begins. If there’s a better time in sports, I’m not aware of it.

But perspective is required. To promote a large gathering would be reckless. We have no idea how pervasive coronavirus is because so few of us have been tested. So, after consulting with experts, most sports have, for the moment, called a long timeout.

Times such as these can bring out the best in us, pulling together the way we did 19 years ago after 9/11. But just as 9/11 did, fear brings out conspiracy theorists. Thousands of people with too much time and too few friends emerge from their basements, or their mom’s basement.

The most absurd theory I’ve read or heard?

Democrats, MSNBC and CNN created the virus.

Sure. Cory Booker, Rachel Maddow and Chris Cuomo, each covered with a HAZMAT suit, Cuomo’s suit black with a black tie beneath it, manufactured the virus. During breaks, they built a time machine, a flying carpet, a cloak of invisibility and a robot with a personality. The robot has a 1-888 number and will be sold only to conspiracy theorists.

We are in a place we have never been. I’m writing this Thursday morning, and I don’t know what happens next, or what will happen by the time you read this.

What I know: As engaging as sports are, they’re a diversion. They’re a heck of a diversion, but that’s all they are. If we can’t accept it, that says more about us than it does our sports.

Short takes: Duke’s Jones good choice

▪ Was happy to see ACC coaches and the media select Duke sophomore point guard Tre Jones as the ACC men’s basketball player of the year. His game offers an enthusiastic old school quality. He’ll drive, play tenacious defense, and although he’s not a natural long-range shooter, shoot better than he did last season. You know what he does? He leads.

Most cities have their version of Charlotte’s Currys, of Dell and Stephen and Seth. They’re not as accomplished, but who is? In suburban Minneapolis, the leading basketball family is the Jones. Tre’s older brother, Tyus, won a national championship at Duke and now plays for the Memphis Grizzlies…

▪ Was so odd to hear North Carolina’s ubiquitous fight song on a Tuesday night in Greensboro. That song usually plays for the first time Thursday, and continues deep into the NCAA men’s tournament.

When you talk about fans not being allowed in arenas, North Carolina’s basketball team also was a no-show in the Greensboro Coliseum Complex Wednesday in their loss to Syracuse.

I feel bad for their six seniors, especially Brandon Robinson, who emerged late in his college career. That career has ended.

Also, I don’t know if you saw or heard North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ after the Syracuse loss. But he put into perspective sports and coronavirus as well as anybody. To do that after a devastating and draining 28-point loss is impressive…

▪ If we can’t watch sports, what can we do?

Oh, I know. Play them. Find a hoop, a ball and bat, a football, a running trail, a bike, and go. And if 20,000 fans show up to watch, go somewhere else.