If this were a baseball game, Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule would be down 0-2 in the count.
Strike one came with last year’s free-agent signing of Teddy Bridgewater, who flopped in his lone season with the organization in 2020. Then came strike two after the Sam Darnold trade proved worthless—reckless even—as the team is now left without second and fourth-round picks and a $18.5 million paper weight on the depth chart.
That has left the Panthers, at least according to Pro Football Focus, as the third-neediest team at the quarterback position heading into the offseason.
“The Sam Darnold experiment returned miserable results for the Panthers this season, and even though they are on the hook for his fifth-year option next season, they simply can’t go into the year with him as their projected starter,” lead NFL analyst Sam Monson writes.
“Darnold posted a 55.2 PFF grade — lower than any single season he had with the Jets and 38th out of 39 qualifying quarterbacks in 2021. It wasn’t all his fault, as the team desperately needs to upgrade an offensive line that surrendered 213 pressures on the season. The answer to Carolina’s quarterback woes doesn’t lie on the current roster.”
What Carolina has on the roster is Darnold and P.J. Walker.
The former, after a solid four-game start, saw the bottom absolutely fall out in his subsequent eight outings. Darnold, with a five-game absence thrown in the middle of the year due to a right shoulder fracture, tossed for 10 interceptions to just three touchdowns in that miserable stretch to end the season.
Walker, while decent enough to suffice as a backup, has yet to prove he’s stable enough to entrust the starting reins with. He wrapped up the 2021 campaign having completed 54.5 percent of his passes for one score and three picks over 66 attempts.
So, where do Rhule and the Panthers go from here?
Do they trade for a veteran quarterback that has overstayed his welcome elsewhere? Do they use their sixth overall pick to take a potentially underwhelming prospect? Or do they bring back Cam Newton yet again?
Whatever Rhule ultimately decides to do, he likely has just one more pitch to work with.
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