Read Loyal Homer and Bleacher Fan’s arguments for which NFL teams they believe have already squandered a chance at postseason glory, just four weeks into the 2009 regular season.
In order for a team to fumble its chances for the postseason – especially this early in the 2009 season – it must have started the season with some shot to actually make the playoffs. In others words, the Cleveland Browns do not really qualify for participation in this debate (lucky for them). This debate is about teams that actually had a shot and have already squandered their chance at the postseason.
Since the lousy usual suspects will not be included, there are just a handful of teams that should have played good football and earned a spot in the playoffs this season. For me, no team has already blown its opportunity at postseason glory quite as spectacularly as the Carolina Panthers.
How appropriate that the Carolina Panthers spent week four of the NFL season at home on a bye week. You know, “bye” as in good “bye” to the team’s postseason chances this season, despite the fact that the calendar still reads early October.
The Panthers are showing all of the signs of a team destined to miss the NFL playoffs after a preseason of hype and high expectations. Exhibit A – the win-loss record. The Panthers completed their preseason slate with a record of 0-4. Fans speculated the team was struggling in the preseason because of the quality teams the Panthers faced, losing at the New York Giants, at Miami, then at home against Baltimore and defending Super Bowl champions Pittsburgh. Tough losses, but it was preseason and not the end of the world.
The thing about losing all of the preseason games is that it creates a culture of losing throughout a team. The Panthers saw that losing culture in full force in week one as the team hosted Philadelphia, and were destroyed 38-10. The Panthers followed up that surprising loss with a trip to Atlanta to face a Falcons team with many weapons. The Panthers lost that game, too, and then traveled to Dallas and lost on Monday night, scoring a mere seven points.
While the offense has struggled, the normally excellent defense that is the hallmark of Panther teams has struggled as well. For some perspective on the poor play of the defense, consider that the Panthers have given up more points than EVERY team in the NFC, except the St. Louis Rams.
That Panthers have only outpaced the offensive prowess of two other teams in the NFL – the Cleveland Browns and the St. Louis Rams. Not the company a team wants to keep in the stat column this season.
So, the offense is bad and the defense is bad. All of the badness will make it difficult to come back and compete in a division that is tough. The Panthers have already lost to one division opponent – the Atlanta Falcons – and will have a challenge to beat them when the two teams play again. The New Orleans Saints lead the division and promise to continue giving Carolina’s defense fits. The Panthers even trail the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in tiebreakers, placing the presumed impressive Panthers squarely in the basement of the NFC South.
The team is also suffering from the slow decline of established veteran leadership and infighting – and the two issues are related. Quarterback Jake Delhomme has slowly changed into a leader with diminishing skills. In the opening game of the season the quarterback threw a whopping four interceptions before getting the hook from the head coach. He has now thrown seven interceptions in three games. His teammates are apparently frustrated. Star wide receiver Steve Smith, showing an uncanny ability for how to use the media, called in to a local sports talk show in Charlotte to announce that he “never liked” Delhomme as a quarterback. When the quarterback and star receiver are not getting along… well, that is not exactly a foundation for a winning team.
On top of all of these obvious issues, the team is now losing faith in its head coach, John Fox. If the coach’s seat was warming up on September 13 – before the season actually started – then it must be on fire now.
The simple fact is that all signs point to a continued collapse from the Panthers. The team does not appear to have the guts and leadership to pull itself up by the bootstraps and compete in the division and fight for a spot in the playoffs. After all of the preseason and training camp belief that the Carolina Panthers were a team destined for an appearance in the postseason, they are now the team most notorious for blowing their shot early in the season.
