It has been yet another tough year to be a Carolina Panthers fan and the management decisions at the team continue to baffle fans. In the past few years we have seen bizarre draft decisions such as Carolina using ALL of their draft picks on defensive players (the first time this has ever happened in the NFL) only to have the defense still be terrible the following years. Then they kept swapping out QB's with none of them ever feeling at home in the position. A series of injuries were beyond management control in 2022 and then one thing that really ticked me off was they decided to release / trade our one and only franchise player who was performing well. His name is Christian McCaffrey and he was basically the only person on the Carolina Squad that we felt was in any way dependable.
Why did they trade him? The fans were pissed. And while I think I can speak for most fans when I say that I like to see him do well even if it is with another team, it is really frustrating to see him perform so well with another team even though he joined mid-season.
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Just to rub some salt into the Carolina wound, McCaffrey has recently set a record becoming the most productive mid-season addition in the history of the entire NFL. He now has 1210 yards since joining in week 7 and this is the best that anyone has ever done in the history of the league.
McCaffrey was one of the only rays of light during the Panther season this year and also one of the only people on the field wearing blue and white that any of us watching felt as though he wasn't going to immediately fumble every time he got his hands on the ball.
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Finishing with a record of 7-10 (with the 10 being losses) the Panthers started the season out with the usual sigh when they managed to win only a single game out of their first 6. Because everyone else in their division is really bad as well, the hopes of making the playoffs were still kept alive although most of us here in Carolina don't really want them to make it because we already know they are going to get destroyed.
Let's look at some statistics: The Panthers currently rank 29th in total yards per game and 28th in passing yards per game. There are only 32 teams in the NFL. The only place they performed decently was in rushing yards where the Panthers are 10th in the league. Well guess who was putting up most of those rushing yards? I'll give you a hint! He now plays for the San Francisco 49ers.
I guess the season ended decently with Carolina beating the Saints in their final game but let's not get ahead of ourselves. That game was tough to watch with tons of turnovers, bad passes, and the offensive line being incapable of protecting the QB long enough for him to do any work. It's also the Saints, who are one of the only teams in the NFL that could be considered worse than the Panthers. To make matters worse, D'Onta Foreman was ejected from the game for punching a Saint in the head. He punched a head that was at the time covered with a helmet. What an idiot.
So we go to the offseason with our heads held low. Management is making the usual promises and picking up a bunch of new talent but I really don't have any faith that the 2023 season is really going to be any different. I think it is going to be a long time before Carolina fans can really be excited about professional football. :(