This prediction will not strike many within the NFL as particularly bold (or new), but it’s increasingly difficult to fathom scenarios in which Matt Rhule’s Carolina Panthers tenure lasts all that much longer.
In fact, based on what I’ve been hearing about this situation since at least the middle of last season, I’d bet you a barrel of sweet tea that the coach who turned around programs at Temple and Baylor is back on a college campus in time to recruit players for the 2023 season. The Panthers have issued any number of statements — on background or otherwise — about the strong relationship between coach and franchise, but it’s not passing the sniff test. They’d have you believe the speculation is nothing but media smoke, but too many people who have worked with Rhule over too many years have intimated to me for far too long that his next move will take him back to the college game for me not to accept it.
There’d be no shame in that, of course, whether owner David Tepper eventually dismisses him or Rhule’s representatives are able to secure a college gig to his liking before that point. Many a successful NCAA head coach has struggled in the NFL before returning to the collegiate level. Far more fail than work out. And through two weeks of this season — and much of his tenure — you’d be hard-pressed to compile compelling evidence that Rhule is going to turn the Panthers around. Billionaires such as Tepper will be so patient only for so long.
The Panthers are 0-2. Baker Mayfield won’t be saving this season. The offense lacks creativity and innovation — Rhule fired former offensive coordinator Joe Brady at the bye week last year — and the defense, while the strength of the team, is far from transcendent and has been on the field for more than 37 minutes per game. The product often inspires yawns, and it’s doing nothing to endear Tepper to a fan base he has done anything but win over. If this franchise has a heartbeat, it’s faint at best.
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Rhule is 10-25, a .286 winning percentage. He has lost nine straight games dating back to last season. He is 2-14 in his past 16 games. There are many coaches, executives and agents who maintain that Rhule was eager and ready to jump to LSU when that job opened a year ago, and while it’s unclear if a program of that magnitude will have a coaching vacancy in the coming months, the rumblings about Nebraska started almost immediately upon Scott Frost’s removal. Within the next six weeks, there will be athletic directors from other schools working back channels, trying to line up their next guy. Rhule will be linked to several of those jobs.
For what it’s worth, multiple coaching agents I spoke to on the condition of anonymity have the Panthers pegged as the first job to open and are already contemplating which of their clients would be the best fit. I asked two high-ranking NFL officials with connections to Rhule or the Panthers what they thought the odds were of him still being there come 2023.
“Are they about to go on an eight-game winning streak?” one asked rhetorically. “I’m still surprised it didn’t blow up last year.”
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The other said: “When’s their bye?” It’s Week 13, I responded. “I don’t think he gets there.”
Agreed. And I’ll sprinkle in another Panthers prediction: Star running back Christian McCaffrey is elsewhere by midseason, too.
Jimmy G is already cashing in
In most NFL contracts that include playing time bonuses, the threshold for payment begins when the player reaches 50 percent of the snaps played at his position. Can you guess which recent quarterback contract starts with far less?
If you guessed Jimmy G’s, go to the head of the class. Of the many renegotiated areas in Jimmy Garoppolo’s deal with the 49ers — after an offseason in which both sides figured he would not be back — this one already bears noting. Following the horrible injury second-year quarterback Trey Lance suffered in Week 2, Garoppolo is San Francisco’s starter moving forward, and his playing time incentives kick in at 30 percent of the snaps.
Sunday’s outing against the Seattle Seahawks also earned Garoppolo an additional $350,000 in payments; he gets a bonus of $250,000 for every game in which he plays more than 25 of the snaps, plus $100,000 for a victory in that game. Garoppolo lowered his base salary from $24 million to $6.5 million as part of the restructuring, but he wasn’t going to make that original salary anywhere else, and his patience in waiting out the awkward situation in San Francisco was rewarded. And make no mistake: The 49ers’ offense is more robust with him at quarterback.
“He gives them a better chance to win,” said one scout who has evaluated the 49ers, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not permitted by his organization to publicly comment on other teams. “That isn’t even under debate.
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“[Coach Kyle Shanahan] can open up the entire playbook now. He doesn’t have to juggle player development and bringing along a young quarterback with trying to win games. They are a tougher team to play with Garoppolo.”
Have the Titans and Colts opened the door for … the Jaguars?
The AFC South has been awful through two weeks, even by its low standards. Some wonder if that is going to change anytime soon.
Sure, it’s early. But the Titans and Colts look nothing like the contenders they have been in recent seasons. There are a number of personnel execs who have been anticipating Titans workhorse running back Derrick Henry hitting the wall — hard. That might now be happening. And a trusted evaluator I speak to regularly has serious concerns about Indianapolis’s Matt Ryan remaining a winning and effective starting quarterback, especially behind the Colts’ suddenly decaying offensive line.
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Tennessee rode Henry hard for years, vicious run after vicious run. But he suffered a major foot injury last season (and wasn’t the same guy in the last two games he played before going on injured reserve), heroically returned for the postseason but now lacks the burst and power that was once taken for granted.
In his past five games — including Tennessee’s playoff loss — Henry has 111 rushes for 323 yards (2.9 per carry). He looks tentative and plodding, nothing like a bell cow back. Coach Mike Vrabel “has to see it too,” one NFL exec said. “They can’t run him 30 times a game anymore.” The Titans’ play-action game — once their greatest offensive weapon — is suffering, and quarterback Ryan Tannehill’s frustration seems palpable at times.
The Colts, meanwhile, have been chasing quarterbacks — with more hope than reason — since Andrew Luck’s sudden retirement in 2019, and one longtime scout who has watched them closely believes this latest experiment, with the aging Ryan behind a line that has not been great, is destined to fail. From Jacoby Brissett to Philip Rivers to Carson Wentz to Ryan, could the Colts have found a middling-at-best solution yet again? Or is Ryan’s slow start just part of a learning curve with a new team?
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“I’m not buying that,” said one longtime evaluator who has watched the Colts closely through two weeks. “That’s not what I see. They got Rivers at least a year too late. I think they did it again with Ryan. If this was a top-five line, maybe. But I don’t see this working.”
Whatever the case, somehow Jacksonville has been the class of this division. And the gap between the supposed powers of the AFC South and even the Texans doesn’t appear all that great.
Notes from around the league
A week ago, I told you to anticipate Las Vegas Coach Josh McDaniels and quarterback Derek Carr having a major recalibration as to how the ball was spread around. Even I was shocked by how far it went. In his first game with the Raiders, receiver Davante Adams, a former college teammate of Carr’s, saw 17 targets on 37 total passes, including almost every drive-opening pass. Color me stunned that in Week 2, even with the Raiders doing whatever they wanted against the Cardinals in the first half, Adams came away with just two catches on seven targets. Surely, some middle ground exists. The 0-2 outfit needs to find it fast. …
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Two teams have yet to score a red-zone touchdown: Denver and Seattle. The curse of Russell Wilson cutting both ways? But seriously, Broncos rookie coach Nathaniel Hackett needs to tighten up his play-calling and in-game management and speed up his decision-making ASAP. Too many delay of game penalties. Too many fourth-down calls taking too long. Too many short-yardage plays that don’t deliver. …
Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson leads the NFL with 11.4 air yards per attempt, and the Ravens are in the bottom five in time of possession. Not only are they unable to run the ball unless the former MVP is doing it himself, they can’t pick up a yard in heavy personnel short-yardage packages. The key to their season might be third-down passing rates, which have sagged in recent years. Because first down is now a throwing down for Baltimore, and with no reason to believe this run game or defense — ranked last against the pass in 2021 — is going to thrive anytime soon, second and third down just might be passing downs, too. Watch Bill Belichick — the master at taking away what an offense does best — sit back in deep zones Sunday afternoon, trying to limit Jackson’s bombs and daring the Ravens to run the ball, crazy as that might sound.
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