Andrew Luck will remain at Stanford. Panthers fans are not happy.

It was just two weeks ago we were all ecstatic that our team held the number one overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.  Remember that?  Now…not so much.

Okay, Andrew, stay in school.  Get your degree.  Maybe we’ll have a shot at you next year.

Whatever happens those of us dreaming of taking the kid from Stanford will have to keep dreaming.

So where does this leave us?  We still hold that pick.  It’s ours.  What should the team do now?

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This Sunday is John Fox‘s final game as head coach of the Carolina Panthers.

Come Monday, Fox will join an already crowded field of unemployed head coaches.  And the Panthers will become at least the fifth team to begin a coaching search.

So who’s next?  Who takes his place?  Instead of throwing out a bunch of names and why they are the best choice for this team right now I’d prefer to focus on the kind of head coach the Panthers need.

Debate among the fans seems to dictate the mention of names like Bill Cowher, Jon Gruden or even Jim Harbaugh.

Further, fans of any team looking for their next head coach will always throw out the obligatory “we need an offensive-minded coach” or “we need a defensive-minded coach.”  Their focus is myopic as they tend to look only at the weakest area of their favorite team.  The thinking is, for instance, that our team has a bad offense so let’s bring in a coach who has a background on that side of the ball.

Is it that simple?

We’ve looked back over NFL statistics and Super Bowl results since 1980 to try to determine a trend.  What we found just might surprise you.

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Larry Fitzgerald: A Panthers Nightmare

wherever they are – Bank of America Stadium, a couch, a recliner.  We’ll be subjected to a 4-win Arizona Cardinals team quarterbacked by John Skelton and a 1-12 Carolina Panthers team…oh, you know the rest.

If you get a sense of deja vu while watching, don’t worry.  A lot of us will get that feeling.  It’ll come each time Larry Fitzgerald, with his dread locks flowing out of the back of his helmet, catches a pass and rips through our secondary.

Sunday will mark a rematch on the same field that we saw on what may go down as a date in Panthers’ history which will live in infamy – January 10, 2009.

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