After a quarterback carousel with Cam Newton and Sam Darnold in a blowout loss to the Buccaneers that could be Newton's last in Charlotte as a Panthers, Chris Lea joins Pat Welter on WRAL Sports Xtra as Chris makes the case for why Matt Rhule should remain the Panthers' coach next season.
Alright, let's head back out to charlotte where chris lee is standing by chris, the fans made their peace known today. They support cam Newton, but who actually played better in this game cam or SAm Donald? Yeah, absolutely. Of course, fans were booing sam Donaldson. Sam Donald actually, if you look at the numbers, he played better than cam Newton. Now, there is a reason for that, right? Sam Donald has been into in this system ever since. What like april may, he's got a chance to know these receivers. He knows his offense and he's had a chance to have the last six weeks to sit back and to really study and look at the things he's done wrong cam Newton over the last six weeks has tried to cram in everything. He lost an OC during that process and he's still trying to get the flow of everything and oh, by the way, he came into this game knowing that at some point he was gonna get pulled after his first mistake, he was pulled so cam Newton isn't playing with the confidence that we normally see cam Newton playing with and Sam Donald ended up looking like the best quarterback today because of chris you and I were at that homecoming cam. Newton wanted to bring that juice that swagger, that energy back to Carolina that hasn't happened so far. This would be a tough way for this tenure to end. Do you think this was the end for cam Newton in Carolina. It's interesting because in this post game press conference. It sounded like he was saying goodbye. He was giving his respects to pass Carolina panthers players. Greg Olsen luke quickly Michael or thomas Davis. He named off a bunch of guys more than what I just named off just now and talked about how the city of charlotte did not deserve this and how he feels empty for not being able to bring a win to the Carolina panthers on the second go round so far this year. It sounded like he knows that his time is up right now. It may be out of his hands. The Carolina panthers maybe they could use him next year. But at the same time, matt rule is trying to save his job at this point. And so bringing back cam, Newton may not be the smartest thing. I don't even know if bringing back sam, darn it will be the smartest thing, but this panthers team needs a quarterback and it doesn't look like sam or cam are the men for the job right now. Yeah, they can't figure out the quarterback. Some of that blame starts to fall on the head coach. And to me, it felt like a guy really defending his job and when that happens, that usually means it's over. So does matt rule deserve a year three? He does. Um, I retweeted this piece of sound from David Tepper that came out two years ago when he let go of Ron Rivera, go back on my twitter. It came from josh graham, who's a radio host out in the triad. And David Tepper was pretty much saying, hey, we're not going to turn this thing around immediately. It's going to take some time fast forward. Two years later, the panthers only have 10 wins since then, five last year, five this year. So far, it's going to take some time when matt rule was hired two years ago. David Tepper himself said, hey, this is a program builder. This guy has always turned around in year three. Year three is the key. Next year will be year three for matt rule and he doesn't do it next year. He should be gone because he would have had three years to get it done. But I think fans need to be a little bit patient. I know it's tough because everybody wants to see the panthers win, but fans need to give it just a little bit more time. This will be the third draft and the third season that matt rule would have had next year. If you can't do it after next year, he probably can't do it and then they should move on then hey, college coaches with better resumes than matt rule have gotten less time than that. Just ask Urban Meyer. We'll see how this one plays out. Thanks a lot chris