Rhule, McCaffrey, Bridgewater Believe the Panthers Can Win in 2020
From the onset of training camp, Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule has talked about the toughness and the mentality his team has and how encouraged he was with the way they compete. With such a young and inexperienced team, mental toughness is something that must exist for the Panthers to find some sort of success in 2020.
Through the first two games of the regular season, we have seen the Panthers trail by double digits in the 2nd half in both games, but never let the game get out of control. In week one, they trailed 27-15 heading into the final quarter of play and fought and clawed all the way back to eventually take the lead before giving up a game winning touchdown to Josh Jacobs. Despite Las Vegas taking the lead back late in the game, Carolina still had a couple of minutes to drive the length of the field and win the game. As we all know, the 4th and short handoff to Alex Armah was shut down immediately, dropping the Panthers to 0-1 on the season.
This past Sunday was the real test, the real measuring stick for how competitive this year's Panthers team can be. Facing off against iconic quarterback Tom Brady and the plethora of weapons he has to his disposal and then on the flip side, having to face one of, if not the best, front seven in the entire National Football League. Once again, Carolina was trailing in the 2nd half, but this time, they were down 21-0 at the half and were one or two plays away from the game getting out of hand. The 2nd half adjustments made by the coaching staff paid off. They were able to completely shutdown Tampa's offense in the third quarter, which allowed the offense to chip away at the lead. Although the Panthers didn't come out on top, they had a chance to tie the game late in the 4th quarter. Missed assignments and a few mistakes caused them the game. Looking at the glass half full, they should have never been in that game. They were resilient and fought all the way down til the scoreboard hit triple zeroes. At this point, that's about all you can ask for from a team that has so much to learn along the way.
On Monday, Matt Rhule went into great detail about how pleased he has been with how well the team has handled adversity and the toughness that resides within each player.
"We have tremendous competitive toughness. I thought the first week we played well enough on offense to win. I thought this game we played well enough on defense to win. I'm not saying we played great on offense, I'm not saying we played great on defense, but well enough. We just have to put a total team effort together. It's coming, it's on the way. You see lots of positive things, you also see some things that have to get corrected. As I said last week, to me, it's not about winning or losing one game. I mean I die with every loss I can promise you that, I love to win and I know our guys do too, but we're just trying to build something - we're trying to build a way in which we do things. I love the fight, I love the moxie, I love the toughness. We have to understand that we're never going to turn the ball over four times and probably win, that's just not going to happen. Those things have to get corrected and we'll go back this week and I think there's a lot to build on."
Moving forward, the Panthers will be without their star running back and one of the leaders of the offense, Christian McCaffrey (ankle), for the unforeseeable future. Even though he won't be able to suit up for approximately a month, McCaffrey likes the direction the team is heading in and doesn't want this team to be looked at as one that is in a rebuild - there's a want to win now.
"We have the guys to win. We've put ourselves in position to win two weeks in a row. We've shown that we can win, we just have to do it," McCaffrey said. "You can't beat yourselves and we've got to play good team football. We've shown that we can do that, so there's no need to be a rebuilding year. With some kinks here and there that we have to iron out, I think it's time to start play winning football. We know we can, so like I said, now it's just time to go out there and do it."
Now with McCaffrey sidelined, the offense will be geared toward Teddy Bridgewater in the passing game. Schematically, they won't change much, if at all, but one would think they would be more of a pass heavy team.
Time and time again Bridgewater has expressed his confidence in not only the offense, but the team as a whole. There are certainly a lot of things that need to be cleaned up and fixed, but according to Teddy, this team has the means to win games. Now it's just about "putting the icing on the cake" as he likes to say.
"Each week we just have to continue to grow. We approach each day with that mindset of what's next? Things come up, they'll be situations in the game where we're up, there's going to be situations when we're down and as long as we can be the same people when we're up and when we're down, that's what's going to help this team to continue to just get out of our own ways. In this game, you deal with adversity and I think we've done a great job of responding to adversity, now it's just time to try and put the icing on the cake. It's all fun and games to talk about, oh we were so close, but you know, I don't really like cake without icing on it."
Whether or not you view the Panthers as a rebuilding team, you have to at least like the way they have battled. The Raiders are a solid team, as are the Buccaneers. No one is saying Carolina will push for a playoff spot or anything, but they will win some games sooner than later. But it would help to have 22 in the backfield.
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