After another disastrous collapse in the second half, it’s time to take a long look at the Carolina Panthers coaching staff and consider what’s going wrong.
What is going on with the Carolina Panthers?
They have consistently blown out the opposition in the first half only to fall apart in the second during every game this season. The only reason the team is not 0-5 is because of the size of the leads they had through the first three weeks.
This is not something that can be blamed on the players, if it down to the talent at the Panthers‘ disposal, the entire game would look like Week 5 and they’d be blown out almost every game.
Execution needs to be better on the field. But it begins with the coaches and their nonexistent ability to make the correct adjustments as a game progresses.
When a script flips as completely as it did on Sunday against the Philadelphia Eagles it is because the opposition saw something in the first half they didn’t like and adjusted accordingly. They made changes and Carolina didn’t counter.
The Dallas Cowboys did the same thing in Week 4 as they overpowered the Panthers in the third quarter to the tune of a 20-0 period. They accomplished this by seeing the fact the offensive line had no answer for extra pressure and began dialing it up regularly, forcing Sam Darnold into bad situations and even worse decisions.
That is coaching.
Carolina on the other hand seems like a deer in the headlights coming out of halftime and it has consistently taken them the entirety of the third quarter to recover if they even manage to at all. Especially on offense.
In the offseason, the team’s offensive coordinator Joe Brady interviewed for multiple head coaching jobs without being hired and his lack of ability to adjust may be exactly why.
To hammer home the point that Brady has been a nightmare in the second half, the Panthers have only scored once in the third quarter all season.
Once.
Of course, he lost Christian McCaffrey and that is a big deal. But this is unacceptable.
To have as much of an advantage in the first half as the Panthers have been capable of and then just magically become incapable of moving the ball is mind-boggling. Nothing should have changed to that extent during halftime with the same players trotting back out.
Carolina Panthers must make better adjustments moving forward.
It’s like they get a game plan in their mind and then never deviate from it no matter what. Either that or get complacent which also comes down to coaching and the ability to motivate.
Carolina’s defense isn’t without their share of the blame either. Even when one considers the horrible situations the offense put them in during the last two games.
When an offense that has been able to do exactly nothing with the football unless given a short field puts up 15 in the second half or let’s say 20 in the third quarter, something has gone wrong.
But I digress.
This staff was once the talk of the league and everyone wanted a piece of them. Even to the extent we wrote about their coordinators being poached.
But no longer after a pair of embarrassing losses that lay squarely on their shoulders. And something needs to change.
I won’t go as far as to say that anyone should be fired as of yet, but maybe that sort of talk will wake them up. This staff has to start performing better or this team will never go anywhere.