Carolina Panthers Eliminated from Playoff Contention
With today's 30-24 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Carolina Panthers are officially eliminated from playoff contention.
For a team that began the year 1-5, fired its head coach after beginning 1-4, traded away its best player in Christian McCaffrey, and started three quarterbacks along the way, it's pretty remarkable that Carolina was even in the picture with just two weeks left in the regular season.
Interim head coach Steve Wilks has done a phenomenal job of getting the locker room to buy into his vision and the culture that he wants to set within the organization. As he has stated numerous times, he doesn't know what's going to happen at the end of the season but for 13 weeks, he was going to do it his way. And although the Panthers fell short of a postseason berth, his way helped completely change the direction of the season. Team owner David Tepper will have to interview two external minority candidates before making a decision on who will be the team's next head coach. Once that process is complete, Wilks should be the No. 1 guy on Tepper's list.
Carolina will wrap up the season next week in New Orleans against the Saints.
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