The Carolina Panthers are close to instituting an all-out search for their next NFL head coach.
If they’re smart, they won’t go very far for this hire.
Steve Wilks should get the job.
Wilks, Carolina’s interim head coach for the past two months, led the team to a 30-24 upset win on the road at Seattle on Sunday. That moved Wilks to 4-4 this season, after he inherited a disjointed 1-4 team from Matt Rhule on Oct. 10 following Rhule’s firing.
Despite the Panthers trading away their best player in Christian McCaffrey only 10 days after Wilks took over, Carolina has gotten better instead of worse. The Panthers’ overall record is a modest 5-8, but they look tougher, meaner and smarter than they did in early October.
In their road win against Seattle on Sunday, Wilks ordered up another run-heavy game plan and Carolina responded with 223 rushing yards on 46 carries. Wilks spent extra time with cornerbacks Jaycee Horn and C.J. Henderson this week, and both responded with an interception (Horn also recovered the game-clinching onside kick).
Wilks directed Carolina to its first road win of the season and now has the Panthers sitting only one game outside the NFC South division lead. Tampa Bay, the leader, is 6-7 after Sunday’s loss to San Francisco.
Carolina has now won three of its past four games and has established a run-first identity that makes it easier for quarterback Sam Darnold not to have to go try to win the game on his own. As Howie Long said on the Fox Sports postgame show: “It’s not a sexy formula, but it certainly is productive.”
So while the Panthers certainly could and should investigate every coaching option — and fulfilling the Rooney Rule means that this likely won’t be settled until mid-January and that Wilks’ interim tag literally could not be removed right now — Wilks is the obvious choice for the permanent position once it’s all settled.
The players like and respect him. He has a unique way of speaking to everyone — polite but firm, leaving no doubt who’s in charge. His nickname is “Denzel,” for actor Denzel Washington, and you only need to hear him speak for five minutes to understand why.
“I’m just so thrilled and so happy for those guys in the locker room,” Wilks said. “Coaches do a tremendous job in game-planning and putting these guys in position, but all the credit goes to those players, and how they go out there and perform and finish. With everything that we’ve gone through — different coaching changes, getting rid of players, or the organization trying to tank it, all these different things — to see how those guys respond and come out and play today. It is pretty thrilling and emotional.”
Wilks later clarified that it was some people “outside the building” who believed the Panthers might be trying to tank, but not him and not the Panthers brass. He has long said he doesn’t believe in tanking and that he wanted fans to know that the Panthers weren’t doing so.
As for his coaching style as he tries to win the permanent job:
“As I stated at the beginning, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Wilks said. “But for 13 weeks, I said I was going to do it my way.”
He’s certainly done that. Wilks obviously didn’t want to play quarterback Baker Mayfield — who Rhule started for the first five games of the season — and eventually released him. He fired some assistant coaches, including defensive coordinator Phil Snow. He went straight into the 1980s for this ground-and-pound offense.
It’s worked. Or, at least, it’s mostly worked. The Cincinnati game was nasty. But for the rest of them, the Panthers have at least been in games, and Wilks has acted like the “leader of men” everyone agrees that he is.
Wilks also knows Charlotte and the area well, having gone to high school at West Charlotte and college at Appalachian State. He’s coached here before, as an assistant and a defensive coordinator during one of the Panthers’ best runs.
As Washington coach Ron Rivera told The Charlotte Observer in October about Wilks: “That confidence, he exudes that. I think that’s where, if you give Steve a chance, Steve will come through. And that’s the one thing that was so disappointing when he didn’t get his complete chance in Arizona. I hope this becomes a complete chance for him in Carolina, ‘cause I believe he’s the right guy for that organization. I really do.”
I wasn’t sure at first, but I’ve come to believe it, too.
Wilks really didn’t get a good shot in Arizona, where he went 3-13 in one season as head coach and then got fired.
Wilks hasn’t been perfect here, either. He should have made sure the Panthers ran the ball at least twice when they had a first-and-goal at Seattle’s 3 in the third quarter with a 20-17 lead.
Instead, Darnold threw it four straight times. All four were incomplete, and the Panthers made it a little harder on themselves because of that empty possession.
Still, Carolina won on the road for the first time all season, in one of the most difficult places to play in the NFL.
It’s not all Wilks. Rhule and current general manager Scott Fitterer had already assembled most of this talent. But through a 1-4 start, it wasn’t working together well enough. Now, it is.
Carolina has a shot at winning any or all of its final four games — home vs. Pittsburgh and Detroit in the next two weeks, followed by road games at Tampa Bay and New Orleans.
“We gotta go home and protect the bank,” said Wilks, referring to the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium.
Panthers owner Dave Tepper said when he hired Wilks that Wilks would be considered for the full-time post if he did an “incredible job.”
You can’t quite classify it as “incredible” yet. There are still four games to go. But to me, Wilks looks like the right guy for the job.
