Could the 2021 Panthers Become the 2020 Dolphins?

The Carolina Panthers began the 2020 season losers of their first two games and fans began looking down south for a future franchise quarterback from Clemson. The "tank for Trevor" chants were set to rumble. Then the Panthers pulled off three straight victories without their best player, Christian McCaffrey, and all of a sudden playoffs were a possibility. Now Carolina has lost five in a row and they sit in a weird position where they are too good to secure a chance at Trevor Lawrence (Clemson) or Justin Fields (Ohio St) but not good enough to make a serious run at the postseason. Currently, they would have the No. 9 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. The team could look to recent history for ways to properly rebuild in today's NFL.

Reasons to be optimistic

In 2018 the San Francisco 49ers finished the season 4-12 bad enough for the second-worst record in the league. They drafted a dominant defensive end with the No. 2 pick in Nick Bosa, got their injured quarterback back, and went all the way to a Super Bowl appearance in 2019. The Miami Dolphins finished 5-11 last year. This year they sit at 6-3 well on their way to a playoff spot. They possess an extremely talented young defense and a future franchise quarterback in Tua Tagovailoa.

This is proof that teams can turn around their misfortunes rather quickly in the NFL. I see aspects of both recent rebuilds in the current state of the Panthers. Like the 49ers, Carolina gave it's head coach Matt Rhule an extremely long seven-year contract. This gives the first-year coach the patience to make the right moves for his team instead of making rash decisions that could hurt the long-term success of the franchise. Much like the Dolphins, the Panthers have a lot of young talent that just needs time to be developed. They also have all of their draft capital. Miami let quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick man the helm to start the season before giving the job to the rookie. Carolina could be put in a similar situation if they choose to take a QB in the first round since they have veteran Teddy Bridgewater under contract for two more years. If the Panthers are going to be next season's version of the Dolphins, then they are going to have hit on their 2021 draft picks.

Reasons to be pessimistic

The Panthers are not necessarily in the best position with the salary cap. As of now, they are projected to rank No. 19 out of 32 in available cap space. This is not really where a rebuilding team would like to rank. The team extended McCaffrey and signed Bridgewater to massive deals last offseason which really puts them in a bind going forward. This just puts that much more pressure on the draft since they will unlikely be in the mix to sign any big-name free agents.

Besides the first-rounders, GM Marty Hurney has been unable to hit on many other draft picks. WR DJ Moore, DE Brian Burns, and DL Derrick Brown have all produced at high levels early on in their careers but as the rounds go on, the talent that Hurney has drafted begins to fade. Carolina must be able to develop more than just their first and second-round draft picks if they hope to return to the playoffs in the near future.

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