Panthers 'Not Close' to Making QB1 Decision
When the Carolina Panthers traded for Baker Mayfield, no one thought that he would actually be entering a true quarterback competition with Sam Darnold for the starting job.
To be honest, I figured this would be Mayfield's job to lose too, but GM Scott Fitterer and head coach Matt Rhule have made it clear that this is going to be a battle.
About a week in to training camp, I can officially say this is an "open competition". The first day of each week, Darnold took the reps with the ones, while Mayfield repped with the twos. On the second day of each week, they flipped. From the third practice last week on, they alternated and that's going to be the plan for the remainder of this week.
"It's not an easy thing to divide the reps up, but you know, we want to make sure we do that," said Rhule. "So we're going to just kind of play it out. But I would expect to see things pretty much 50/50 for the you know, immediate future. And then at some point, as I said, we'll get to make some decisions. But I think that's a long way off."
Darnold had the upper hand through the first few days of camp but Mayfield has had a couple of practices where he has shined as well. The two have been fairly even throughout most of the practices, meaning there has not been any separation to this point.
Rhule knows a decision won't be made anytime soon, but when the time comes to start evaluating the two for the job, he knows what he's looking for.
"I think what you end up doing especially early on in training camp is we're not really evaluating everything but sure, you know, you want guys to make mistakes. You want guys to have issues. You can't fix perfect but we can help them improve if they're not at that point. I think the biggest thing for me is you know, hey, are they doing the right job? Are they playing hard? All the sort of the standards we have in terms of effort and execution. Are they doing those things? You can't comment on the competition every day at every position. You have to give this thing time.
"When we start to evaluate, I think number one: mastery of the offense. Who understands how to protect themselves in protections? Who understands all the run checks? Who understands the timing? Not just on the blackboard, but on the tape. I think it's playmaking. Who can move the ball? And then finally, it's situational awareness. Understanding third down, understanding two-minute."
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